Shameless Theology

Teología Sin Vergüenza roughly translates as shameless theology in English, and it’s a digital media platform and space that originally was done in Spanish. It was a direct response to the total monopoly that the far right has on all religious programming, at that time both social media, TV, and radio on anything having to do with religion. We created it as a space for folks who live at the intersections of queer or trans feminist theology, people of faith and activists to come together to have real conversations with theologically trained folks about real life issues that are happening to us today. Whether it’s divorce, sex and pleasure, gender identity, abortion, this was a place where all of those taboo topics could be talked about with real people in real time who have knowledge of the Bible, theology, Christian tradition, and are ordained clergy for some folks. So what makes it special? Well, one of the main things we’re doing is bridging the divide between silos of work like the academy or the church or activism. Another place that makes us really unique is that we talk to folks across the spectrum. From folks who are Pentecostal, evangelical, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, you name it, we’ve got it. Folks who currently identify within a Christian denomination and folks who are spiritual and religious outside of the institution. We try to talk about things that other places don’t allow you to speak up about. We try to heal some of the wounds of the global North and all of the toxic theology that we’ve been exporting through colonizing religion for centuries.

We work from a horizontal place in community. It’s a space where we welcome conversation and difference, knowing that we will find a place of common ground, that when we learn from each other and each other’s strategies and how each other lives, that we can find places to move forward together. We already take it for granted that the people that we’re talking to deserve to be heard and listened to. We have theological education. We have different places within this fight for liberation, whether it’s from being a professor in an institution, to being an activist on the ground, or an artivist, or a pastor. All of us come together into this space and each week we focus on one individual person, their lived experience as somebody from Latin America or in the diaspora. And we talk about what is alive and well for them in their work, in their hearts, in their spirits. We don’t come into it with a preconceived notion of what we need to talk about, what we need to get done. We focus on what’s alive, what corresponds with what’s happening in the world, and not in a way that folks have to defend their existence, but rather combines education theologically trained people with whatever’s going on in their particular world. Whether it’s in a foreign country, whether it’s in the US, we are having this conversation.

And this is the first season that we’re doing it in English, and that’s because we recognize that there are a lot of folks who are part of the Latin American diaspora who don’t have access to Spanish, either as their first language or because their families have spoken other languages. We’re trying to show with our actions what is happening in the world in real time. When we stop paying attention to borders as barriers, when we stop thinking that somebody who thinks differently than us or believes differently than us or has a more complex story to tell is somehow less worthy than those who feel like they have it all figured out and have a monotone narrative to tell.

We’re also intentionally biased. We’re trying to back up the work of human rights and the struggles for liberation all across the globe through this work. So we know that we’re coming to it with a particular lens and a particular experience as queer and trans people, as activists, as folks who have spent a lot of time and energy doing deep reflection about the critical issues of our time and have things to say about how we might approach those. We feel like through this interview style that’s very conversational, like coffee at the dining room table in the afternoon when someone comes to visit, that we have this way of understanding the whole person. Maybe not every detail of their story, but at least we’re coming to this point of seeing what they are inspired by. What keeps them up at night? What are the things that they’re working on to make this world a better place? This is a way that we’re trying to move through time together and bridge the gaps and the silos that we’ve been created to live into over and over and over again. We are rooted in experience and in practice and in praxis and we theorize about the real world and what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.

The point is we’re trying to get at decolonial faith. We’re trying to understand what it means to separate the political agenda of weaponized religion from actual faith. That is true to our traditions. Whether it is recovering Christianity, whether it is mixing it with other forms of spirituality or whether it’s setting it aside and having an intelligent conversation about what happened and how we got to this place. There are experts in certain fields, but we are all the experts of our own lives. So this space, that for the first time ever is in English, we hope expands the field of theological education on a real kind of conversational basis that helps folks understand that there is so much brilliance coming out of Latin America and the global South, and that many of us who have Latin American roots are still here in the US in diaspora, and we have a lot to contribute to the conversation.

TSV started out of a very specific conversation when I was meeting with feminists in Costa Rica, but I wanna tell you the story because it’s a repetition of a similar story that I could tell for many, many countries across the globe when I’m having these conversations. I was visiting a seminary in Costa Rica and after our daily conversations, I got invited out to dinner with a group of young Costa Rican feminists. And the similar thing happens over and over again where we sit through a really intense but wonderful conversation that starts with, “okay, but tell me about the rib.” And then it goes on from there to ask about Paul, the submission of women, the Bible and Christian theology in general. Underneath that conversation where I answer about appropriate translations, the weaponization of the text for the purposes of patriarchy, where I talk about how politics and religion actually totally go together, and that the Bible is actually a very political book that has a lot of opinions about how we should behave in a political world, it always ends at the same place:

“I didn’t know that I could be both feminist or queer and a Christian. This thing that you’re saying, are you the only one who believes it or are there others like you?” And then the hurt is always revealed of folks who have felt like they had to choose between the lifesaving work of human rights or their religion. And that’s the moment of truth for me because it says, and they always hear the same thing, “Where can I go for more? How can I learn more about this way of thinking about God, this way of reading the Bible? This kind of analysis?” And the truth is, particularly when we’re not speaking in English, there’s very little that’s super accessible for people just to be able to tap into for free, to learn more about this. And of course that’s intentional because that’s the way religion of power works. So Teología Sin Vergüenza started in direct response to that question, “how do we create more accessible content for human rights defenders, for L-G-B-T-Q-I, people for feminists, and for others who have a faith but it doesn’t quite square with the world around them and what they’re seeing, and what they need from God, the Bible, and theology in this moment?

So from there we took it to, “I know some friends who have their theological training and who are queer and or feminist. What if we just recorded conversations?” And then those people invited other people, and it organically grew. Now across every Spanish speaking country in Latin America and across many states in the US. Many episodes of beautiful conversations, and now for the first time in English. So if you’re somebody who is navigating gender, sexuality, faith, family, the current issues of the day, and you wanna be in community with others, we welcome you into the space of Teología Sin Vergüenza, a space for folks to come, to sit at the table, to talk over coffee, to share a little bit of chisme, a little bit of knowledge, and a lot of love for our people and for the future world that we wanna see for all of us.

Bienvenides!

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing, I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer, trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere we do our work, in the academy, in the church, in our homes and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy queer feminist Latina theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair, because you belong here. Now, let’s get down to pleasure. Welcome to this episode of TSV. Today, we’re going to hear from a really special guest, Reverend Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz, who was my co-conspirator in creating Teología Sin Vergüenza more than five years ago. Reverend Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and she has done everything from being a lawyer to a performing artist, educator and practical theologian. Right now, Lis works as Associate Professor of homiletics and worship and the Director of Community worship life at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt University, and has studied at Princeton, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Puerto Rico. Her research is in preaching, worship, performance studies and queer decolonial perspectives. This is a real treat.

Hello!

Hello! I feel like we should be like bienvenides a Teología Sin Vergüenza, teología cuir feminista que hace fluir la justicia.

Yes.

Okay, so we are going to just get into a conversation today, because you are the original sinvergüenza. And it feels really important to revisit this is our, we have eight seasons and 70 something episodes in Spanish of this podcast, and this is the first time we’re finally getting to English, and so I’m hoping that in our conversation we’ll just get we’ll be able to talk a little bit more about what is Teología Sin Vergüenza, what is this thing that folks who are listening for the first time getting into, what have we been up to? And we can’t possibly do that without starting with you, because you and I were the original sinvergüenzas that started this whole thing back in 2020, for the podcast. So let’s start how we used to start, which is, I am Reverend Sex, also known as Alba Onofrio. I am in Mexico City right now, and I am so excited to have you with us today. Tell me. Tell me you.

Hi. I’m Lis Valle, sometimes known as Sofía Divinatrix, and I am in Chicago, Illinois, north of the United States. I’m so glad to be here with you.

I know it’s so strange speaking in English also.

It’s also very Yes, exactly. I have to be mindful not to switch.

That’s okay. We’ll switch, and we’ll switch back, just like we did when we were in Spanish and somebody started speaking English. We’ll just rewind and redo. But, okay, so tell us a little bit about you and your connection to me and Teología Sin Vergüenza. And we what is sinvergüenza? Like, tell us anything you want to. And then we’ll jump into like, What is sinvergüenza and all that stuff. But you go, what do you want to take? What should we tell our audience?

I think we start with, I identify myself as a sinvergüenza, sinvergüenza shameless and sinvergüenza, yes, I self-identify as a shameless person because my grandma used to call me when I was a little kid.

What is it tell us for you? What does sinvergüenza mean, and when was it used in the context of your life?

Yes, in Puerto Rico sinvergüenza as a single word, right as a single word “sinvergüenza” is a person who is is mischievous like, it doesn’t um, a person without manners, really. It’s when an adult says to a child, you are a sinvergüenza it’s that the child is misbehaving, is not having good manners, and it should behave. So I was always a misbehaved child. I guess, I, with my adult eyes, I think, with my adult interpretation, I think I always found out that they were rules because I broke them. That’s how I found out that there were rules. I just I was a free-spirited person. Some people might not believe that about myself, but once upon a time, I was and and then I found out that there were rules. And that’s how you know, adults would like, tell me, “No, there’s a rule against that” and then make my life miserable by letting me know that there was a rule against that. And then, um, yeah, shaped me into a not so free-spirited person, and teach me, you know, what a good Christian was, especially a good girl, Christian woman, Christian girl, Christian woman, eventually. And that totally messed up with my mojo. Yes, that’s a long story about my life, but that, yeah, sinvergüenza. And then, you know, two words would mean without shame, which I did carry a lot of shame for a long time, and sometimes it, you know, creeps back because, you know, trauma healing is a lifelong journey. Yeah. It’s not a single it’s not a linear process. It comes and goes. But here we are claiming that we are still a shameless person, a sinvergüenza, who do, who does sinvergüenzuras. Still misbehaving, especially to dismantle patriarchy in religious spaces, and to dismantle heterosexism and heteronormativity and all of that stuff that Teología Sin Vergüenza, since the beginning, has been against.

Yes, it’s so true. And sinvergüenza, in a lot of contexts, is a highly gendered and sexualized term. Like, it very much reminds me of this, like you, your shirt, your skirt’s too short, and your mouth is too loud and you have a little bit too many opinions. And so if

Your legs are too spread apart, your legs. You have to sit like a lady!

Yes, the closest thing I have in English growing up in the South was like, “have you no shame?”. Like, “young lady have you no shame?” Like, that was we don’t have that beautiful sinvergüenza word that really captures all that. But the closest we have was that phrase, which was just like, if you didn’t have shame, it was telling you that you better go find that shame because you’ve misplaced it. Because you’re supposed to have shame about whatever the thing is that you’re doing at this moment.

But isn’t that so accurate? Right? Because what they do is to place shame on you, and through shame, they control your social behavior, and it’s real shame. It’s real shame that you can’t it’s so hurtful. Yeah, it damages the soul.

Yes, amen. And I think that’s why we picked that name, because it was like, the wrong people have this wrong it’s the wrong people who are carrying the shame, and we shouldn’t be shamed, or feel shame or guilt around our sexuality or our faith or our activism or pushing back and not being compliant with systems of oppression. The people who should be feeling shame are the people who are perpetuating these systems of harm, and yet we’re the ones called like being called out because we’re not holding the right social norms that are expected of us. So I think that was part, I don’t know what you remember five long years ago in the middle of pandemic lockdown, but that felt like one of the things that are kind of themes of both of our lives. That we kind of connected with going to school together in Nashville and having that moment of learning about each other and really different contexts where we come from and like how we grew up, but yet so much the same in terms of the shame that we’ve experienced around gender and sexuality in confronting these systems and having to heal and come out of the closet again and again and again from that shame and guilt that was put on us to try to try to control our social behavior.

Yes, I remember too, that there were three things that were important. So, yeah, when we started, well, we started planning before the pandemic hit. Yes. But then when the pandemic hit, I remember that we kind of rushed things to get it out, because it’s like people are indoors, so, this is, this is the time to do it. And then we had a lot of time, a lot of a hard time inviting people to record because, of course, people were more worried about other things. We were in the middle of a pandemic. People were worried about life and death things, which these things are we we can get that soon. So then that’s why we went live. We started, instead of going pre-recorded, we started going live because that made more sense for people than pre-recording. But three things that we were looking for that that you did some research, and you were like, “Lis, Lis, I’m having a hard time finding people that can, people find weird, that we, very comfortably connect activism and theology and queerness.” Yes! In Latin America. Maybe the United States, that’s not so odd, but you were around the world doing this, the work that you do in Latin America, and people were like, wait, but you’re an activist and Christian, wait, but you are queer and Christian, but you are the three in one? Like, how is that? And that was part of what kind of moved us into creating this space to have conversations and also to introduce one another to our friends who are those three things, the three in one kind of thing?

Yes, I was because, well, I mean, it’s been an intentional monopoly by the far right, in addition to exporting resources and like Sunday school lessons and sermon seeds, has been to control and completely monopolize Spanish language media channels. And that was where we were, like, you know, there’s books, there’s tons of brilliant, beautiful academic work being done, but like, accessible in like conversation style, listen talk, you know, really easily accessible for everyday people, even in rural places, even for people who can’t afford fancy books. And so we’re like, let’s just start talking to our friends ’cause I know some people, you know some people. And you were like, the Spirit told me, we need to do Facebook live.

Yes, I remember that! I was like, it was from the spirit!

You were like, the Spirit told me. And I was like, Lis, I’ve never even been on Facebook Live. I’ve never seen one. You’re like, well, open it up. Let’s get started. So here we are, five years later. How was how were those seasons for you? We took a little break last year because we did the international queer feminist theology encounter here in Mexico City with folks from like 13 countries celebrating the first three years of Teología Sin Vergüenza. But as you reflect back on so many, I mean, more than 70 episodes. We went to Cuba. We went to Costa Rica. We have done things online all over the place. What, what stands out? Or what do you think is like one of the lasting takeaways from that content, for folks who maybe didn’t get to hear it the first time in Spanish?

For me, it was life-giving to be part of the the first, I don’t know how many seasons I was part of, and then the comebacks every now and then. Thank you for inviting me to be part of the of the Cuba season. Cuba, as they say in English, they say Cuba. It’s been life-giving. People who know me have have seen, like, when you are in those episodes, you are alive! And it’s like, and it’s true, it’s too bad that I my job consumed me, and I turned my, my time and energy into paying the bills. But these,

As many of us have had to do!

Yeah, but, but this, this job is, is very life giving to me, and I hope it was for the many people that went through the show, that came as guests, I mean, and it was for me very life-giving that eventually we started having, like we started to know, by name, the regular listeners. Because especially the beginning when it was live, you know, we could see the comments that they were making at the same time that we Were speaking. And it was conversation with with the guests, right? So we would see who was making what comments. So we started like, learning by by name, knowing by name our followers. So that was very, very amazing. And I think, I think that relates to something we were talking about, off off air earlier, about home. That during the pandemic, I found that home for me was spread around the globe. Yes, I didn’t find home in Chicago, where I live, I didn’t find I I didn’t find home in Puerto Rico, where I’m from. My My home, my people were spread around the world. And, and the thing is that there are very few in numbers, wherever they are. Wherever we are. So, like, and so that that need that we found back then, I have found that in the United States, yeah, there’s a lot of you can find a lot of people that are very comfortable being queer and Christian, and usually they’re white. Usually people of color are like a Christians, like churches that are churches of people of color, like black churches, Latino churches. I don’t know a lot about, like Korean American churches or Korean churches, but they tend to be very conservative churches, and they cannot fathom the idea that Christians can be queer or that queers can be Christian. And so I have found that there’s, or activists. It’s like they think politics and religion don’t mix, and so that the need for have those conversations, that those three things can coexist in a single person is real among communities of people of color in the United States as well.

Yeah, I think that so like that gets at what we’re doing, which is one of the questions I was thinking about, was like, what’s going to make this season in English different? And I think part of that is this, like in Latin America, we found not a single soul who didn’t understand that religion was critical to whatever was happening in activism, in the world, in politics, like religion was right there, and particularly Christianity, because that’s the religion of power in our hemisphere, was like right there. And lots of countries are even confessionally Christian, or Catholic or whatever. And here we have kind of this myth in the mainstream that there’s a separation of church and state, and there’s this, all this mythology around it. But I think in our communities, particularly immigrant communities, and those of us who are like first generation and still very connected to those past. That that part about being in diaspora from land and people that you’re from, and also being in diaspora because you are queer or because you’re a feminist or an activist and those things not mixing in the intentionally created conservative denominations that our people come into when they come into this country. I think it’s really important that we talk about that because, you know, rainbows in general, at least in my experience, like first for communities who have been out forever, they’re like, oh my god, the rainbows. Roll your eyes. But whenever I go throughout the world, in the Global South, rainbows are still really important, like people get really hyped. And I think the same thing is true in our communities here, that it’s like, it’s still a really brave thing. And I think now, as politics is getting more and more difficult. It feels less like a foregone conclusion that you can just have rainbows and be out as queer or trans anywhere. But I think in our communities, it’s always been true that to be queer and or feminist and a person of faith in in your community, in your faith community, which houses so much of your culture and your language and your people when they immigrate to this to the US from other places, like, that’s still a very scary and brave thing. Because it it actually has very real consequences for most of our lives in terms of whether or not we’re going to continue to be accepted in a place that’s like home, even if we’re in diaspora. So I feel like queer people, activists, feminists and, like, immigrant people, we have those parallels. And I don’t know a lot about other immigrant communities more beyond, like, people whose roots come from Latin America, but I feel that resonance deeply of like the colonizer with its colonizing religion, made us kin, and then, so, in some of those ways, it feels like maybe in English, this will help us see each other a little bit more. Or at least, like, come out of the closet to be like this is still a very real ongoing concern for a whole bunch of us. Not, it’s not just a foregone conclusion that, like, we just go to the next church down the way that is inclusive or does welcome you and your partner or whatever. Like, that’s not true, that for us in the same way.

No, it’s not. No, have you heard the term sexiled?

No, tell me about it.

I’m not an expert in the concept, but a friend of mine told me about sexiled, and it makes sense to me, because I have a lot of friends who left Puerto Rico even before me, way before me, because when they come, when they came to terms with their own sexual orientation and they wanted to be ministers, and they knew that in Puerto Rico they couldn’t be ministers and queer. Yes. Back then, when they left, they couldn’t be Christians and queer. Yeah. Even today, just I was having a conversation today with a with a religious leader in Puerto Rico, and he was telling me, like, there are things that in Puerto Rico, they still, you know, like in seminaries in Puerto Rico, he couldn’t teach. Like, conservatives are taking over the island in the same ways that they are taking over the United States. So sexiles are people who left Puerto Rico because Puerto Rico is more than an island, many islands, left Puerto Rico because of their sexual orientation, so they can live freely their sexuality without fear. So they became, so they exiled themselves. They became part of the diaspora because of their sexual orientation. Which is a different reason than in my case. I became part of the diaspora, because of other reasons. I thought, I thought it was, it was, you know, it was because I was running away from a very bad marriage, even though it was over, the marriage. But then I later found out that it was part of a social phenomenon that was going on, right? That it had to do with class, and it had to do with colonization. So a lot of people moved, right? Because of the exploitation of the island and the economical conditions and looking for jobs and better. But you know. So that’s how I left the island. I found a job outside of Puerto Rico. And I left the island because I was living in the in the Big Island. But other many of my friends who left the island were also from the island. They left because of their sexuality. And some of them still became pastors, but some of them didn’t. Some of them, they just renounced their calling altogether. And then, many years, decades, even later, you know, my denomination accepted. First we accepted what back then they call same-sex marriage, and later we accepted the ordination of queer people. Which, was kind of a very interesting way of going about things. And in Puerto Rico, even though we’re part of the same denomination, they were not, that hasn’t happened yet. So in the books, that is true, but in the ethos of Puerto Rico that hasn’t, in practice, is not true. Because the beliefs of this of the people are too ingrained to move away to a different practice. And it’s, the irony of this is that the indigenous people didn’t have all this that we have, right? It was colonization that taught us about heteronormativity and, yeah, and the idea of monogamy, the idea of, you know, the virginity is a construct that stay a virgin until married.

That virginity is even a thing that you go from one state to another state.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. All of that came with European culture. Yeah. And then they put it in the guise of Christianity and and morality. So then they impose all of that and and now, you know, and now, it’s like, we have the impression that is the liberal or progressive churches that are moving away to something else, when in reality, the indigenous people had that liberation, that had that different theology long ago, way before colonization.

Right? It depends on what you mean by traditional. Do we mean traditional, as in the traditional European Victorian era white man theology? Or do we mean traditional, like, way back, like way way back? In which case, we’d have to get rid of a lot of the constructs of, like, sexual goodness or morality. And, you know, you’re one of the people, I love you so much for so many reasons, but I feel like one of the ways that we connected, was this work around sex and sexuality. And, you are one of the most adventurous people that I know. And I really love that because, you know you’re you said, “Hi, I’m Lis!” Right, but you are Reverend Doctor. You are a professor at a seminary. You actually, this year, in October, in a couple of months, is the 10th Anniversary of you ordaining me in front of community. So, you have a lot of roles in institutional, you know, the boxes that one needs to check for success. You have checked all of those boxes! You have become you’ve done the PhD, you have been the professor, you have been the ordained minister clergy. So, that for me as one of those beautiful juxtapositions where it’s like, oh, you’re supposed to be the epitome of institutional, organized idea of what’s good, and yet I find you to be one of the most creative people and one of the most adventurous sexually to explore. Like, what is true about your body, what is true about your pleasure? What is true about your desire? What? How do you mix creativity in every possible way that also includes your sexuality, which for me is like very hard to come by. And the longer we’re in institutions, especially academic ones or church ones, the harder that is to hold on to. So I’m curious, if you still, that’s how I encountered you all those many years ago. So tell me a little bit about what, where do we find you today? What’s up, what’s been in your recent exploration? How do you how do you identify these days? Does that still feel true to you? How did you maintain that adventurous spirit in spite of being in all these institutions?

Yeah, well, I think adventures is a good, yes, that is a good character trait. As I said, socialization really killed my soul,in church especially. So, there’s a name for it, right? Purity culture. Yes. So, my denomination comes from the Puritans. And everything that you said about the explorations, adventurous with my sexuality, was not a thing until after my divorce. Many years after my divorce. Maybe it started when I was 38. But this is the thing, my beef now with sexual purity is because I was like, if it has not taught been taught to me in the high school that I went to, many of my classmates ended up being pregnant before they got married. Which I did too, but I was one of the latest. I did that at 19, when many of my peers did that at 14, 15,16. So for me to do that at 19 was like I was almost an adult, right?

To have sex or to get pregnant?

Both happen almost simultaneously, because sexuality purity, you know, yes, yes, sexual purity. So anyway, so, if I didn’t have all of those teachings from the church, if I had a different teaching from the church, instead of Puritanism, then

And science! Like what it means to get pregnant or not, right?

I had the science. I had the science. I just, you know, tweaked with it a little bit, you know. I didn’t count well, but, or I counted the way I counted because I wanted to have sex. And the first time, you know, anyway, let’s not dwell on the past. I have two beautiful kids. But, and then I got married. I shouldn’t have gotten married. And then some other things. You know, my my mother did try to dissuade me to getting married. She told me I didn’t have to get married. So kudos to her for that. But I, but I married the first.

And she’s a pastor! I love her. I love that. Yeah, she has grown alongside you leaps and bounds.

And we were telling these days, we were telling the story of my me celebrating the 11th anniversary of my ordination, and she was making jokes about biscochos and milk. Biscochos in Mexico, you know, it doesn’t mean the same thing as in Puerto Rico. Biscochos in English is cake, but the Spanish word that we use in Puerto Rico for cake in Mexico is used for the for the private parts of the women for vulva. So, and she was making jokes, with a Mexican dude, in my ordination anniversary! About eating the cake and drinking the milk, which is another euphemism for semen. Anyway, so

Kudos to her! But, you got married to the first man you had sex with. Because of purity culture.

Exactly. And it was like, something like, we, like, I, quote, unquote, “lost my virginity”. Quote, unquote, because, as you said, I had been exploring. And we had had conversations about, like, how creative you can be when you are in this purity culture. If virginity is defined penis inside a vagina, we go around that in many ways.

I was the most creative human. I mean, I could just find 60 ways from Sunday to avoid. I’m like, that’s, we just got one act we have to avoid? One thing? Yeah, done.

So we were very creative. So anyway, so I did. I did. I was very adventurous with my husband. But anyway, the cool stuff started when I was 38. I still, after the divorce, I was still in this thing of looking for a guy today who like not have sex until we had my no sex in the penis, vagina penetration kind of thing, also being creative around that, all of that thing, I was still there. Until I went to Vanderbilt and I meet Alba. And you know, there are not many Latino people, not when I was there. There were maybe three of us.

When I went to visit, and that you were in PhD program, when I went to visit, I asked about the about Latinas. And and, you know, kudos to the lovely admin admissions officer, person, who was like, “Oh, we’re hoping you’ll bring that. We gave you a scholarship, literally, so you could.” And I was like, Oh,

They wanted you to be the first, oh, my God.

It was very direct. I mean, I asked a direct question, and I got a direct answer, which I appreciated. But, so, when I when we talk about being the first, we were like that first cohort. You, me, and Brisca, who, who was another sinvergüenza, but more,

Because I was there for longer. So, the PhD is longer than the MD. So after the three of us were there, they were they were up to 10, maybe Latinos at the same time. So that was cool. Anyway, so I did a lot of explorations. And after I moved to Chicago, it was even better. Because I had my friend who I was like, “Hey, I created this character, Sofía Divinatrix” who is inspiring, like, you know, being a dominatrix. And, and then I started reading about dominatrix. So I learned that you can, like, take classes to be a dominatrix! And he started, like, he started, he researched that, and he was the one who said, like, hey, Lis, I found where you can take classes. So we started going to kink conferences. So, so yeah, since 38 from to here, I have been exploring other things like the kink conferences, and the swingers community, and non-monogamy, and dating women, and dating couples. And yes. And the most recent one that I was really excited about was pegging a guy that was really awesome, yes. So I’m excited about doing all of those things. And I really, you know, the non monogamy part, I was really suspecting it my whole life. Because, when I was in eighth grade, for the first time, I heard people talking about some some father of some students. Somebody was like, “oh, so and so left his wife for somebody else.” And I was like, so what’s the problem? And at the moment, I was like, if they stop loving the wife, well, just let him leave the wife and go with the other one. Because they’re just gonna hurt more if they are staying, just because. You know? Yeah. I didn’t, like, in my head, I couldn’t, so, and then I meet Alba. And I reached out to Alba. This is why I mentioned that the lack of Latinos, because I reach out, but because, um. You were the only other Latino other than Brisca. But you were in class with me, and I loved your comments in class. That’s why I reached out to you. And then.

I have no idea what I said.

I started studying. I took a class on the psychology and something as a psychology, and something else of kink and something else. So I’ve been learning, in books and also in conferences, the practices and the philosophy of all this stuff, and also playing with people. I joined fetlife, which is like a Facebook for people with fetishes, and so I can indulge in in my fetishes and meet people. That’s another place which we can have find home, right? Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this thing publicly. I am a professor, like I was professor at a seminary. But anyway, I had come to embrace, I was saying.I do want to share the story that I started dating a person who is a leader, a religious leader, and I don’t know that we are dating. Maybe you can call us lovers. And we, at some point, we had the conversation of, like, wait a minute, I just embraced myself as a non-monogamous person. And you are monogamous. And if this goes well, what are we going to do about that? And we had that conversation of like, and then we left it at that. And then the next time we saw each other, we were like, okay, listen, I’ve been thinking. And I was like, “I’ve been thinking, and if being with you means that I have to give up non-monogamy, then I don’t want to be with you, because it took me a lot to be to get to this point of accepting myself.” And he said, “Well, I have been thinking, and I don’t want you to give up non monogamy to be with me, because I want to enjoy you the fullness of you.” So I was like, oh my god this is so awesome!I don’t remember, but it was after a while, a few different sessions have gone by. And I was like, in love with Alba’s comments. And I follow you. I remember exactly where we were, you know, and you were able to step out of the building, and then I was like, “Hey Alba, wait up!” And then we were talking there, and then you said something about you being non-monogamy. And I remember that I took a step back because, like, hey, I’m a recovering Evangelical. And it’s feeling great in my, you know, in my being. So my body took a step back. It was like, oh, that’s like a lot for me, non-monogamy. What is that? And so that’s how I got introduced to the philosophy of non-monogamy.

Yes, literally.

So, that’s why we kept going. Um, so anyway, that story I did want, I did want to share. Because maybe I, maybe I have reached the point, now I’m at the point in which I’m very choosy of what I’m looking for. I, I was for the last few years. I’ve been like, hey, if it is good sex, I’m taking it while I find more steady partners, yeah. But now I’m like, no, I know exactly what I want, and so I’m not gonna dedicate any time and energy on relationships that are not what I want, because I need that time and energy to find what I want. And there’s nothing wrong right to just have. I don’t want to and to shame anybody, right? Shameless here, not shaming anyone, right?

But the way you got there is so much more organic. If like, we, I truly believe that at different moments in our lives, different things are right for us. Like, sometimes it’s the exploratory phase where we’re figuring out what feels good in this moment, in this body. Because, you know, the body that I have now at 45 is not the body that I had at 25 and is not the body I’m going to have at 65. So ,it’s like, there’s things about my body, about my life, about my finances, about my circumstances. So, the idea, it’s really wild and cool that you are getting to this place where you’re like, “This is what I’m looking for, and I’m going to date for that, and that’s what I’m going to spend my time and energy.” Because so many of us, and you’ve shared your own stories, right, about like, we go to what’s right, because that’s what’s allowed, and we don’t even know what the other options are. But for you, I have so much respect for folks who decide to be monogamous or who decide to, like, not be in a sexual relationship at all, or are solo poly, or whatever the statuses are. But it’s like, through a deep conversation with oneself, that you get there, rather than “that’s not allowed or that’s wrong, or that’s bad, or that’s evil.” Or, whatever those things are that try to shape us. It’s like, there’s not a wrong answer, when you get to what is right for you and your adult, consenting relationships that are ethical and transparent. There’s not a wrong except for if it’s wrong for you. And there’s not a right except for if it’s right for you, as long as you’re not hurting others. So I just respect that so much, that that is where we can land, through those other means as well. Because they they, I feel like we’re taught like, well, if you go down that slippery slope, you’re just going to be having sex with everything that moves forever. And then, you’re just going to be this used up, whatever, whatever. And it’s like, well, some of us will choose this life, some of us will choose that life. But what, what does it mean that we’re in a life that we didn’t choose? Right? So if I am swinging from the rafters, having sex all day, every day, and that is a life that makes me feel most alive and myself and I feel good in that, that’s a very different experience than I feel like what they taught us. Which was happened, which was like, I don’t know if you ever had this exercise, where they would put tape on everybody, and they’d be, like, every time you have sex, you basically, like, get the tape dirty, and then you try to stick it to the next person, and it doesn’t stick as well, and eventually, like, it loses all its stickiness. Awful, right? But, like, that’s what we’re talking about. Well, like sex and sexual partners, and it’s and so I just feel like it’s so important to

I had other exercises like getting the water dirty or the milk dirty. Awful. Equally awful.

Oh, awful. So all that to say, I just think there’s so many different options, and there’s so many different ways to be relating to each other, and it doesn’t have to be one way. You don’t have to be like, “This is how I am right now and forever, I’ll be this way.” But, also, it may end up that you’re like with your one person, and y’all are monogamous. And what like, that’s a possibility! We don’t have to shame that. Because the other side happens, I think, in queer communities, where a lot of folks feel like, well, if I’m not having sex with three different people, and nesting with one, and co-parenting with it, like there’s like, this, all this thing that’s like, the more complicated your polycule, the more evolved you are, or something. But it’s like that isn’t necessarily where you’re going to land. The point is just to continuously be in line with your own self, rather than the boxes that society or religion has put you in.

Yeah, and that includes it choosing to be asexual. Like, that’s what is that your choice? That’s your choice, and everybody needs to respect that. Your body, your rules, right? Also, I want, I want to name that I started, especially I started having an issue. My issue with purity culture became bigger when it became beyond myself, right? Like I had issues because of my own story, which, of course, I can paint on other, on other cause causes, not purity culture. But, there is a co-relationship, a causal corelationship between purity culture and rape culture. Yeah, so we do, we do have to name that, and be very careful about that. So at the same time that we have respect for people who choose to be asexual, and there are people who do not choose asexuality, like that is the way that they were born, right? Like they would say, just as people say, like, I didn’t choose to be homosexual, I didn’t choose to be heterosexual, I didn’t choose to be this or that. I was born this way. You know, that is what I am trying to say. Is not the same to be asexual that to engage in purity culture. Those are two different things. That’s what I want to say.

Or like, side b culture. Which is like, I think this is a sin, and therefore I’m going to abstain from having sex, because I think the sex is a sin because of Christianity. As opposed to somebody who is choosing with their own body, their own autonomy and their own desire. I mean, some, it’s not even just the asexual identity that is, like something that you are born with is inherent to your identity. There’s also just the choosing of not having sex for a while with anybody, or with just one person, or just with yourself as a way of, like, creating more space. Because, Lord knows, people talk all the time about like, “oh my gosh, you’re non-monogamous.” Have been for now many, many years. And it’s, it’s like, seen sometimes as like, “Oh, that’s so evolved and so cool.” And I’m like, It’s not about being cool. It actually is an incredible amount of work, the quantity of emotional labor, communication, working on your own shit, working on whatever comes up for two people, or more. Like, it’s just, it’s a lot of labor. Like, it’s an incredible amount of labor. And I think, I have those moments also where I’m like, I actually don’t want to be in a sexual relationship or romantic relationship with more than one person. That doesn’t make me not monogamous, that doesn’t change that identity. For me, it’s about literally, the capacity that I have and the energy that I have and what’s best for myself and whoever else I’m choosing to be in relationship with. So like, there’s all these different ways to show up in sexuality that isn’t purity culture, even if the practices of having sex, or not, or whatever, look similar.

Yep, yeah.

Okay, I want to ask you a question about institutions, because you have status and standing in both the academic institution, as somebody with a PhD. You have standing as somebody with a decade of ordained ministry, and many more years before that. You were also a lawyer before theology happened. So like you have been, you understand the rules, the laws, the structures, for a long time. And I’m wondering how you navigate all of your identities and your fullness in those institutions, like how that seems so, so many of us are like, “No, forget the institutions.” I am such an anti, anti-institutional person at heart, and part of that is just frustration, of like, I can’t navigate those systems. I can’t figure out how to navigate the institutions and still keep myself as myself, that I’m as somebody, I’m recognizable to as myself. So how you do that? Like, what, what has been, your strategy, your secret? Like, I remember your dissertation defense and you were like, doing a strip tease as part of that.

It was burlesque! There’s a big difference. There’s not a big difference, but there’s a difference.

Burlesque. The whole thing is that you have been irreverent from the beginning, and you have really found ways that I’ve constantly been like, “they’re not gonna let you do that!” And sure is, sure enough. There you go, doing it anyway. So I’m like, I really, I worry for you, and I also admire you, and I wonder how, if you will tell us a little bit about like, what advice do you have for others? Because I know there’s so many of us, there’s so few. La como latines, immigrants, first gen, second gen folks in theology, in particular, in the church leadership in a like, feminist way, not in a conservative way. So, what do you what are your thoughts, or what are your advice, or what are your cautionary tales, or any of that stuff that you have, because I really want to know that, like me, I want to know, and I know our listeners want to know too.

Well, I admire you very much. You’re a strong person that I look, I was like, Oh, wow, advice. I want to be like Alba when I grow up, like Reverend Sex and like, I want to be like Sofía Divinatrix. Yeah. I want to be that dominatrix and that strong personality that I give her. And actually, Sofía Divinatrix is also like, she ended up being a dominatrix because I was trying to develop bounce, sort of a bouncer, like, like a soldier, like a military, like a kind of warrior, kind of personality. Anyway, that’s a whole other conversation. To your question. I tend to recommend people not to do what I do, because it comes at a great cost. You know, it’s like, I cannot help it, you know, I try a lot. I try a lot not to get to go against the institutions, but I cannot help it. I, you know, I’m, I don’t know how, how many times I can say, I try to help it, but like,

You’re a sinvergüenza at heart!

Exactly! You know, I, you know, I write down what I am thinking. I do my exercise, my breathing exercises. I still, after a while, I just got like, and I blurt, blurt out, you know?! My, my, my health providers, my therapist, a few of them have told me that I lack, me falto un filtro. I’m lacking a filter. Recently, a friend of mine who has a kid with an niece with autism, has asked me, “Are you sure you’re not in the spectrum?” Which makes sense with that comment from professionals. It’s like, oh, maybe that’s why I don’t have, maybe I am, that’s why I don’t have a filter! Because that is one of the characteristics. So, I can, one of the things for self-care, when we are people of color in these white-serving institutions, is to have spiritual disciplines. And spiritual disciplines vary from people to people from person to person. You know, whatever feels, fits your soul. Alice Walker put it in some, so, in In Search for Our Mother’s Gardens. Yes. Because for, for, I don’t know if it was her mother, her grandmother, it was gardening, right? Yeah, it could be gardening. It could be painting. It could be, in my case, I have a spiritual director. You know, people go to therapists, I recommend that everybody should have a therapist. A therapist. One of the things that I do, because I have been performing artists my whole life, is that I create characters. And one of the one of the points of highest contention in my career, in my workspace, are faculty meetings. And there was a time that it was getting so bad that I started, found that it was during the pandemic and after and after, and so the meetings were online. So I started, like, wearing witch shoes.

I love it!

It it was like, Okay, I’m gonna bring my witch energy to the faculty meeting. So I was wearing witch shoes, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t see it. But I was like, performing that I was a witch, and I had my witch hat. I didn’t wear it, but I had it by the laptop.So, I was seeing it, and I felt that I was like, like, dressed like that. I created a character called, what’s her name? Dr. Brown Nerd. Dr. Brown Nerd. I created her before I was a doctor. And, Dr. Sexy Brown Nerd, excuse me. Dr. Sexy Brown Nerd. She wears. She dresses up, sexy with stilettos, black stilettos, a black dress with with long sleeves and like collar and a business jacket that is light pink. But the black dress underneath has a very low cleavage. And then I put my hair in a in a bun, so it’s it’s display between respectability politics and super sexy. And and then earrings, dangling earrings, and they are plastic, and then the color is like multi-layered. And those kind of earrings jewels are not allowed in academic spaces. So, you have the business jacket, and you have, you have the black, which are things that Academy expects. They expect women to wear business jacket, and they expect women to wear black. Yes. But they, and they expect women to wear their hair in a bun, because the hair it needs to be controlled, like the women need to be controlled. But they don’t expect to see pink, because pink is too girly. You’re supposed to be gender less. You’re supposed to, you know, paint away your gender so they, you’re not supposed to show your cleavage. You’re not supposed to have dangling earrings. You’re, or stilettos, or stilettos. Yes, which I can barely walk on them anymore, but especially after the after the the surgery that I had. And I wanted to mention about that. It’s slightly out of what you’re asking, but I think I want to share it, because it has to do with how we live our sensuality and how we leave our relationships to bear fruit in the world. When I went to surgery, I was really sad that my uterus was going to be taken away, because, for some reason, I was still dreaming that I would have more children. And, and you gave me a box with two little eggs inside, inside a nest. I still have them, in in my office. I keep them in my office to remember. And you said a prayer that was something, we did a summer of a mujerista ritual, kind of, or inspired in mujerista theology. And you said some words around, around the the children that I would have, right, without an uterus. And you were not talking about real children, necessarily. But when we, when we started this, the podcast Teología Sin Vergüenza, I felt that that was our baby. And that was one of the most exciting things about starting the project back then, it was like, Finally Alba and I are going to have a child together!

That’s right, because, and that’s a very queer concept, right? It’s like, we create and when the Bible says, you know, be fruitful and multiply, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean that everybody has to be birthing babies all the time. That means there is what we put our life force into, and that which we put our life force into is what creates and sustains life for us, for each other, for the planet. And so it’s a yes. Teología Sin Vergüenza as our baby was a very queer, beautiful like nest being built, which is, I think, speaks to why so many people, we now are like in 39 countries, and have followers and have had episodes from almost everyone in Latin America, in Spanish speaking Latin America, and a few folks in Brazil. But I think it’s this orientation of like we tried to create a nest that we needed and we wanted for ourselves as sinvergüenzas, and that we were inviting other people to be in. We were inviting other people to be in community with us and to be in our nest, in our home, and we got to create that space together.

Yes, and now that I mentioned the dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity school when we were there together, she told me that was one way to stay alive in academic spaces, to always have a project that is life-giving for me, and that’s something that I still do today. So yeah, that’s one way that I would totally recommend people, you always need to do something that gives you life when you are in spaces that are death-dealing to you. So I think this season of Teología Sin Vergüenza In English, is very on time, because you’re right this, these are difficult times for us. And I think what this, what I hope for this season, is that we can provide a space for for these kind of people that are three in one, to find each other in times that are, that we are vulnerable. So we can be a support group, kind of, in which we can, you know, know that we are, like our slogan says in Spanish, we are not many, but we are here, and we have each other’s back, right? We are still being brave from our spaces, in our different spaces. So we are still Christian or whatever spirituality we practice. We are still activists in whatever space we are, and we are still queer. Proud to b

Yes, proud to be all of those things, and also that they can’t be divided from each other, right? It’s like this is who we are, and it feels like a coming out to say, we want to come out of all of the closets and be our full selves. And I hope that this is a space where our people can find that, especially folks who are in diaspora and maybe haven’t been with us before. I’m so grateful for your time today to get us started for this season. And of course, we always end, you know, as well as I do, we always end with the same question, which is, when you are having those moments, when you need to be restored, when you need to be reminded who you are and where you come from, what is your fount of strength, your cloud of witnesses? Who are those ancestors, be they family or cultural icons or thought partners. Who are those folks that you call on to help your spirit be reminded who you are?

I have many. And I have actually an art that I created in which I put a rainbow and I put all of them, like their faces, in inside of clouds, because it’s my cloud of witnesses, and they’re there. Even, you know, it doesn’t matter if I met them or not, if they are alive or not, you are there. Brisca is there. And I like to start with my mom and my abuelita Justa, because they were the the models I had of what what a woman was is. So I start with them. They model for me femininity and, and, and what a strong woman is to how to how to survive inside of a family of machistas. There’s that, right? Yes, and, and then in you know, the wisdom of of people like Gloria Anzaldúa, or like Marcella Althaus-Reid, who opened doors for us to do queer theology and kink theology and talk about the queer God and other many, many other scholars. I also like to quote a lot and and when I need like poems to read poems, I go to the to the, to the writings, I’m sorry, the writings of Rubem Alves from Brazil, who said that outside of beauty, there is no salvation. And my pedagogy is founded on Paulo Freire. And Augusto Boal, a Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theater of the Oppressed, respectively. Yes. But yeah, I have to say that my main theories are the theologian is Marcella Althaus-Reid, and the performance studies is Diana Taylor, who her name doesn’t sound like that, but she was born in Mexico, raised in Mexico, and most recently was teaching at NYU. I haven’t checked her bio recently, but the last time I checked, she was teaching at New York University in the Department of Theater and and she studied in Canada, went back to Mexico and naturalized in the United States, which is part also of this diasporic life. Yes. So, many, many other ancestors.

Yes, I feel like one of the biggest compliments we’ve gotten via sinvergüenze André S. Musskopf Was that, you know, as a collaborator with Marcella, as somebody who was like in her like thought circle, one of her students, one of her colleagues, they’d say, you know, this is the direction she was going. Teología Sin Vergüenza, here is the continuation of that spirit. So I feel like Marcella is one of those ancestors for Teología Sin Vergüenza as well. So I’m glad to hear that she’s one of yours, and we didn’t even get to talk about the theater studies. But I feel like your embodiment with theater, church and homiletics is like a whole other episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza That I would love to get into. But thank you for your time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for starting us off and look forward to coming seasons where you’re back in the co-host seat with me.

Thank you very much for inviting me to this new invento, embeleco, and this new adventure of Teología Sin Vergüenza, and I am so delighted to be part of this crossover.

Yes! Hasta luego!

Bye!

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel, and find us on social media at soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish, cuídadete mucho, and remember we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to the Teología Sin Vergüenza, queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer, trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to. Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work, in the academy, in the church, in our homes and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas activistas. We are shamelessly las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair, because you belong here. Now, let’s get down to pleasure.

Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today we have the honor of having Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford with us, who is an author, a theologian, and has been Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology at Garrett Theological Seminary since 2003. Before that, she taught theology in her home country of Argentina. She’s written and co-written or edited 11 books and written over 100 book chapters and journal articles which have appeared in six languages. Her forthcoming book Jesús: Una cristología al andar and her latest book chapter “La teología frente a la violencia feminicida” are on their way. So don’t miss what she has to say in this amazing episode.

Hi, welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza,

I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

It feels like an honor to have you in our studio. I’m so excited for our sinvergüenzas to hear from you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us your name. And also we’re just going to jump right in with the same question we always have, which is this idea of sinvergüenza. Tell folks who maybe are not familiar with English or your particular cultural context, do you identify as a sinvergüenza? What does that mean in your terms, in your world? And we’ll start getting to know you there.

Well, my name is Nancy Bedford. I live on the outskirts of Chicago. I am from Argentina. I have lived here a couple of decades, and I’m in and out of Latin America and North America.

You are famous among our people.

Well I don’t know about that, but I’m honored to spend time in different parts of Latin America, personally and virtually. And one thing about living in Babylon, as I call it, in the empire, is you have access to a lot of places that when I lived in Argentina, where I’m from, I did not have.

Yeah.

So it’s been great to be closer to the Caribbean, closer to Mexico, to Central America, to the north of South America these years. And I’ve really enjoyed that. Yeah, the sinvergüenza thing, that’s a really hard one to translate. What comes to mind as a translation in English is kind of scoundrel, right? And a kind of a male figure, which you could read maybe as a bit of a trickster, but it’s not really where I would place myself. But if I separate it into two words, sin vergüenza, right, rather than the one noun, two words describing what I do, then yes, sure, no tengo vergüenza, right? I’m not ashamed. And what comes to mind is Romans. Romans 1:16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel. Why? Because it’s power, the power of God. And that kind of power is a power that it’s empowering. It’s not power over its power with its power alongside. So I’m not ashamed of that kind of power, that kind. Authority, that kind of movement. You know that word, if you think about that passage, the idea is, I’m not disgraced. I’m with grace. I’m not without grace.

Yes, like divinely given grace, rather than societally given grace, yes, yes.

Yes, yes, like, Mary full of grace. Like, we’re all full of grace. And we’re not without grace. We’re not grace-less, right? So to be unashamed is to be full of grace. You know, riffing on Paul.

And that is the gospel for our community, Lord, we need that.

We really do. We really do. And so rather than sinvergüenza, I like irreverente, which is another adjective which means irreverent. You can translate that better into English. So a theology that is not afraid of being irreverent in the face of things that we don’t need to take so reverently, right? That we don’t need to bow down and obey. So I love that word teología irreverente. I love the word porfia, which can’t be translated into English very well either, but it means a kind of resistance, a kind of recalcitrance, a kind of disobedience, once again, to the logic that’s the dominant logic. So la porfia de la resurrección is a line from a song in Spanish Tango that I took for one of my books, meaning that kind of recalcitrance, or that kind of resistance or disobedience that comes from the power of the resurrection. So very similar to that you know, Romans 1:16 idea: revolutionary, irreverent, recalcitrant, full of grace. Those kinds of ideas resonate with me.

I love it, and thinking about you speaking from that place of power and kind of an immutable right to dignity and grace, I want to jump to a quote that you said that for me, just feels so important because so many of us are told that we can’t be both Christian and feminist, or Christian and LGBTQIA, or feminist and activist, and also working on things around theology that we’re not allowed to touch it. And so you said to me in our first meeting, I became a feminist and ally because I followed Jesus, not the other way around. And I was like, Oh, that’s so beautifully empowering for so many of us who are told, and I’ve heard so many folks say I had to give up religion, I had to give up God, I had to give up faith, because feminism was a thing that saved my life. It’s a struggle that helps me survive, and feeling so much grief that folks feel like they have to separate and divorce those two paths. And so you saying that I resonated so deeply around it is my faith that makes me that compels me to work for justice, that compels me to be recalcitrant in the resurrection. So will you tell us a little bit more about how did you get there? What is that experience for you?

Yeah, sure. And I think it’s a very contextual matter. I mean, so much of our biography is woven into this kind of thing, so there’s not one path or one way to get in any particular place. And I totally understand those who might say, you know, these places are toxic for me. I just can’t I can’t be there. And in fact, I raised with my husband, three daughters who are now in their 20s. And that was always one of my criteria for choosing a community of faith, was, Is this place healthy for them as young women? Yes, will they be able to flourish or or not? And if not, I’m out of here, right? So I’m very aware of those of those dynamics, and not naive. But I will say that I grew up in young churches, churches that were just beginning, that were very fragile, very horizontal, where there were no luxuries, as if to say, one person in this community can be dispensed with. Everybody was needed, right? So I grew up being needed and being trained to be a leader through things, as you know, might sound funny, but like Sunday school teaching, right? I learned to teach Sunday school to kids. You know, when I was myself, a kid 11/12, taught a lot of pedagogy that now I might think, oh, you know that was Freirean pedagogy. This was about being teacher-learners and learner-teachers. This was about a pedagogy of hope, of transformation. I didn’t know it at the time, or we talked about interpretation of scripture, and everybody had an opinion, and that was okay, right? So you might call that, you know, community reading of the Bible. So these hermeneutical ways were kind of instilled in me without me even knowing what they were. Nobody would have talked about a theology of liberation or feminism, but in reality, that was being formed in me.

So as a girl, you were allowed like your gender wasn’t a thing in the church.

Never, I did not encounter any of that till I went to seminary, which is another story. So it was the time of a dictatorship in Argentina. I was in high school when the last dictatorship came into power. And so church was a space of formation and of developing leadership that was basically off limits most in most other spaces, and my parents supported me in things like: No, I’m not going to go to the Te Deum, which is the kind of religious, militaristic at that time, confluence, you know, on a Sunday morning, to carry the flag and to celebrate, you know, nationalism. I’m not going to do that, because I don’t, I don’t really follow that. That is not my loyalty. Yes, my loyalty lies elsewhere. So that’s what I mean about that kind of irreverence and rebellion in the name of you know, what we would call the reign of God or the teachings of Jesus. So and we can talk about kindom, kingdom, if you want to.

Yes, tell us cause, I bet many people have never heard both female words or pronouns or metaphors being used for God or the Holy Spirit. Many of us have never heard inclusive or feminine words for the for Holy Spirit for any part of the Trinity. Many of us certainly have never heard this very important one letter missing and you change the whole meaning. Will you tell us about that kindom versus kingdom?

Yeah. Well, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, who was Latina theologian here in North America, coined this idea of Kindom, so kingdom without the “G”, to talk about the familial aspect of the project of Jesus. Which I love, and I really believe that it is so. And I, and I even think of it Trinitarianly, because if Jesus is our brother, and the spirit is our mother, and the first person has a parental aspect that we are adopted by, then we enter into the life of the Trinity in a kind of familial way, as brothers and sister, as siblings. So it’s a very egalitarian and beautiful metaphor, but families can be just as oppressive as kingdoms too, right? So we don’t solve everything by saying kindom, yeah. We have to be careful, because some families can be awful, right? And we don’t want the life of faith to be that way, Kingdom or rain or common wheel of God, is the way that we usually translate what Jesus talks about in the Gospels. And I like that part of it in the sense that it has a political dimension. There’s always a political dimension to faith. You are in the face of powers that would take on control of all aspects of life, and you’re saying, No, I don’t. I’m not a citizen of that logic. So if you take away that the rain, common wheel, or even Kingdom idea, you may be throwing out the baby with the bath water. So these notions both of the familial dimension of being in the life of God with each other in a very mutual in a way traversed by mutuality and not complementarity. Mutuality. And the political dimensions that were not party politics, but were polis-based, in other words, having to do with our life in the city or in the town. Or the small little town in which I lived in adolescence, those were embedded in my experience of church. And so, it was by following this path that then I became aware of things like liberation theology, feminist theology, queer theology, right this path of following the Gospels and taking them seriously led me to those other things, and they seem to really fit together, rather than the opposite. Now, churches often if they’re reading something like the Gospels, and the Gospels are like dynamite. You never know when that thing might explode, right? Sometimes they create people that then they don’t know what to do with.

Yes, I feel like I am one of those people.

Why is it so many that, you know, it’s like, let’s talk about these things, but let’s not really live them out. The minute a young person wants to live them out. Well, no, you’re not really welcome here, because that was just talk.

Right?! And those of us who took them seriously, I was raised Southern Baptist and I’m like, I am literally the product of everything you taught me. You didn’t expect this to be the outcome, but here we are.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So you know exactly what I’m talking about then. And I’ve seen that again and again that churches just don’t have room for people who are trying to live out seriously the very things that supposedly they stand for, right? Yeah. So I developed later, much later, the notion of theological feminism to describe this kind of life of being empowered by the gospel, by the good news of Jesus, without giving it the name feminism. Either because you don’t like that name or because you never heard of it, which was my case. I had not heard of it, but it seemed clear to me that things were transformative, that the gospel was transformative, that things like, Okay, you will, you know, be oppressed by your husband, the Adam and Eve story, that was the bad outcome, but the gospel had come to turn that around. Yes, right? And for there to be equality, or the parts about we’re all made in the image of God. Incredibly good news, right for all of us. And I’ve never forgotten what is said one time when she was visiting in Buenos Aires, she said, Let’s not forget, just to remember what good news it is for women who are struggling in violent situations, to remember I am in the image of God just as much as anybody else, right? So Christology, although that might sound like a repressive kind of a discipline to some, and it could be, because every symbol can be distorted and misused, and Jesus talks about this right in the in the in the gospels, but Christology really well understood and not separated from the life of Jesus, of Nazareth not be not becoming abstract, but really always grounded and fleshly. It puts an end to these ideas that women are somehow secondarily or queer people, or somehow secondarily in the image of God. Yes, we are all in our particularities, beautiful love, beloved by God and made in God’s image. And in each of our particularities, we are so and nobody is like the other person, right? So Jesus did not become a generic human, but a particular human, and in that particularity, we’re represented, not in his maleness, not in his Galileanness, not in any of his particularities, but rather the particularity itself is the universal, yes. So, this idea of theological feminism allowed me to kind of connect to women who have felt empowered by their church experience, even though they might not use the word feminism to describe it. Feminism, feminist theory, like decolonial theory, like queer theory, like so many theories, can be very helpful to make sense of a reality and have a language to talk about. And in the case of feminism, there’s also a movement that’s politically based for, you know, the equal freedom, dynamically equal, not identical, but dynamically equal, freedom of all people, and so I would not want to throw that out the window. It’s helpful, right? Teoría, literally means to see, to look at. And so it helps me look at. It’s kind of like glasses to help understand reality. And so I would not get rid of that, but I only made my way to it, frankly, as a result of women asking me to do so. When I, when I, when I was not trained at seminary or later in my doctorate in these theories, I did my doctorate in Germany in the 90s, and when I got back to Argentina, the women close to the institution where I was working, who were some of them pastors, this kind of a mainline Protestant institution, some of them were pastors, some of them were students were like, well, we’ve been waiting for you, you know, let’s be talking about feminist theory. Let’s be talking about gender. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, I don’t know much about this. Let me study.

Many of us come to it that way. Let me catch up with what y’all are talking about.

Yeah, exactly. So that was where I realized, okay, no, actually, I have been formed in some of these ways. I just didn’t have language for it until now.

Yes. And I also wonder if you see, or if you could talk a little bit about the difference. I feel like, growing up in the United States, in the US South feminism, one from my very conservative and religious background, feminism was a bad word. It was man haters and, you know, all of this very negative stuff. But then once I got to the academy and even to movement spaces it was a bad word for another reason, because it represented the kind of racist history of white supremacy in our country. And it wasn’t until I started spending most of my time in the Global South, both in East Africa and in Latin America that I really let like clung to and continue to cling to the word feminism, because it was a way that people saw each other across so many different lived experiences, and it didn’t, it didn’t mean the same as it did in the US both from the like the negative, conservative place. Maybe that one was a little bit closer, but certainly not from this race and class analysis. So I’m curious, you having used that as part of your work, and having had that distance and then closeness and then macro view, will you talk a little bit about how that’s been for you, that specific word feminism, and how you’ve seen it be different in different places?

Yeah, that’s a great question. So many things are different the minute that you cross the border to the north, right? Everything is different. And so what I’ve tried to learn in that and that crossing back and forth is the power of each context teaching the other context something, not to translate it directly, but to give you new lenses to see the old context. So I’ve learned a lot about whiteness by being here in the United States, and I am white presenting, right? So what does that mean? But then it has also illuminated some things I hadn’t seen before in Latin America, you know, where white privilege also exists, even though it may not manifest exactly in the same way as in the north. So with feminism, the first thing I’d like to say is to presuppose that it’s something that comes from the north is a mistake we had in Argentina in the 19th century, so in the time of the first wave of feminism here in the United States, we also had leaders. And one of the ones that is important to me is Juana Manso. Juana Manso was a journalist, woman of faith. She actually became Anglican and a writer who lived in Argentina, then Brazil, who was not even allowed to be buried in a cemetery, because that was before the fight for a civil registry and civil spaces in which to bury people. So if you weren’t Catholic, there was no space to be buried. She was buried outside the gate, so to speak. And she had a feminist newspaper or magazine and wrote feminist texts, right? So we’re talking mid 19th century. She was a teacher, so she was not somehow derivative from the North. These are feminisms that are, that are our own feminisms, yeah, right, and our own travails and struggles in the south going further back. Sor Juana. Yes, you know, which is a kind of patron saint for a lot of women, who was not perfect. I mean, she was a complicated figure, but was an incredible intellectual, and wrote theology as well as the love poems and many other things. She wrote in Nahuatl and Spanish, and also brought in habla de negros, which was the Afro-Mexican way of speaking in some of her Christmas poems. So, you know, she is a lot older than any North American feminist movement, right? She’s a kind of a feminist hero. So to say that everything derives from the north or from white women so called would be a big mistake. So that’s one of the reasons why these movements are different in our countries. And there’s a whole lot of theory that comes with feminism that’s not translated into English, yeah, but that isn’t Spanish and Portuguese. And there’s a whole lot of struggle at the grassroots that one never hears about in the north, right?

So that’s a huge reason for Teología Sin Vergüenza, is because there’s so much brilliance happening south of the US border, and either because of our bubble in the US or because of just access to information or lack of access to language, I just have felt so much craving, desire for those of us who went through seminary and other things in the north to know that we have so many more things to talk about than just migration. We have so many more things to talk about than just the suppression of women in the church. And so I love that you’re talking about this, because I’m like, this is literally the beginning of why we did Teología Sin Vergüenza. Because there’s just, like, so much to be said and to be heard and to be talked about that we don’t even know because when our families come to the US, there’s a lot of assimilation, or institutions don’t know how to really dig deep to pull from those resources. And there aren’t that many of us in theological education. So there isn’t as much demand as there should be for, for our histories as well.

That’s right, and those histories are so rich. I mean, in Argentina in the wars of independence, there was a black woman named Remedios who was, who fought alongside her sons and her husband and became an officer in the army. Yeah, a decorated officer. Yeah, I didn’t learn about her in school. Yes, you know, I

I didn’t, I didn’t even learn about Sor Juana in school!

There you have it, you know. I didn’t learn, I didn’t know that that Argentina was the River Plate area was maybe 1/3 to one half Black back in those days. Nobody talked about that, right? Because there was a big influx of European immigration in the mid to late 19th century and early 20th century that kind of whitened and erased some of what had happened before, right? And yet, there it is. So these stories of our past and of the women should not be erased, and that is part of the feminist legacy from Latin America. Flora Tristan is another one, the Peruvian Marxist amazing woman. And well, there’s so many. So our history is rich, and it questions some of the presuppositions here in North American feminism. That said, the critique of Black women to kind of white first wave feminism and later feminisms, for example, the erasure of Black women from things like Seneca Falls, you know, when you had amazing Black female preachers doing the good work that that is notable, right? So there have been these pacts of, you know, white women with some Black men, or white women with white men, or Black men with white men, you know, all these various pacts that somehow have left some women, other women out of the, well, repressed their power really, put down or attempted to put down by these logics. And so then there is a feminism that is a kind of bourgeois middle class white presenting feminism that’s not really about a rupture with the logic of common sense, the dominant common sense, but it is rather about women becoming more like the men in power. Yes. That is not an interesting feminism to me. For me, what’s interesting is a logic that ruptures the way common sense says things should be, and changes our relations of power and is based on mutuality. And mutuality is so much richer than these complementarian ideas, because in mutuality, we realize there are some times in our lives when we will be energetic and we’ll be strong, and there are other times in our lives when we’ll be weak and sick, and that’s okay, totally. Right? Because we’ll help each other out at different points, and we’ll have gifts to bring, according to what time of our lives. That is, I live with my dad. My dad lives with us. He’s 98, you know. So he is not the strong person physically that he was, you know, even 10, certainly 20, 30, 40 years ago.

That’s right.

And so a kind of mutuality understands that and values it. And so that’s what I also see in some of these movements. So I’m never really that concerned about the adjectives such as feminist or whatever you would like to use. I’m basically a theologian. Yes, you can put the adjective that you would like to put on that, but in reality, if you pursue these matters, you will be seen negatively by some, no matter what you call yourself.

Totally. I really love what you said about the, it feels very queer, like queering and queer language when you’re talking about the difference between we want the same power that you have. You being whoever is, is in authority is in a position of authority or power, in this case, white men. We want that same “power over” which goes back to what you were talking about around not being ashamed of the gospel and the grace is about “power with” and it feels very queer, queerifying to be like right when we say we are queer versus just gay or lesbian or bisexual or whatever, we are actually questioning the foundations and the assumptions around what it means to be a certain gender or a certain relationship, we’re actually questioning that entire system. We actually want to take that down and create something new and different that is about that that kind of mutuality. And so I’m just, I’m listening to you talk about that in the terms of what feminism is, what feminisms are interesting to you versus not. And I’m like, that feels so right in a queer body, to be like part of this is a political project around questioning the entire construct that it’s built on. And from there, then we get into this. I think it’s worth saying for folks who maybe are new to the conversation that complementarianism is kind of this idea that we hear so much in conservative Christian circles that’s like men and women were made for each other, this kind of like, hand in glove, penis, vagina, kind of sexuality that’s so basic and simplistic and not at all based in reality, but that is kind of their lock and key bread and butter. Of this is the proof that God made us in this way to behave sexually in this one kind of dynamic. And so when I hear you talking about mutuality, it actually rings very, feels very connected to pleasure and desire and connection in ways that feel good, both sexually and non-sexually. But it is this like based on, it feels for me, it resonates with my own feelings around God, wanting this kind of mutuality that is satisfying for us, that feels right for who I am, in my particularities, I love how you’re talking about it’s not Jesus specificities as male, for example. It is that he has those specificities rather than, like, you know, gray.

Yeah, so rich. And I do need to say something about complementarianism, which is the complementarianism that I’m critiquing is this binary based ontological separation of people, you know, basically on the basis of a uterus or not a uterus, or something like that. There is another kind of complementarianism in indigenous communities in Latin America, which is, it’s, I can’t wrap my mind around it totally because I’m not indigenous. But I learn from friends about this kind of complementarianism, which is a kind of understanding more like yin yang, right, and the way that things kind of bleed back around into each other. So I’ve learned from my Kuna friends in Panama, that Baba Inanna is the way that they talk about God, kind of mother/father, right? And so. So I don’t want to say that those kinds of complementary understandings are necessarily opposed to the mutualities, but I am speaking from a context in which these Eurocentric categories predominate. And so that’s what I’m critiquing, right? And especially these binaries. If you’re this, you can’t be that. And so, so José Muñoz, you’re probably familiar with him, he was a queer theorist, he takes Althusser’s ideas, this is a kind of Marxism, and that’s then queered about identification, counter-identification and dis-identification, right? And so if you identify with something, you incorporate it and you want to be that way. Some white feminisms have been that: I want to be exactly as the men, the dominant men have been, and that’s it, right? Counter-identification is: I will be exactly the opposite of that thing that is dominating, right? But I’m not realizing that I’m not outside of the binary.

Yes, it’s like jumping in their frame.

Yes, yes. So what we want is the dis-identification, which is outside of either one of those, and saying, This is a new thing. This is why I would use pneumatological categories, categories that have to do with the Holy Spirit to think of, you know, we’re going to do a new thing. I love John, the Gospel of John 14 through 17, where Jesus has his farewell discourses and he says to the disciples, you know, I’m going to send this other advocate, yes, the Ruach, feminine figure in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible. And the Ruach, this other advocate, the Spirit, is going to help you do new things and greater things, different things, greater things than I have done. That means that we can do a new thing. Yes, the things that we’ve done before may be valuable, and we’ll keep what’s good. And it’s not that we need to destroy everything. I am all about retrieval, but also about transformation. So in that discourse, Jesus opens up this possibility for renewal, transformation, liberation, new things and yes, pleasure as part of that right enjoyment. Lacan, the famous psychoanalyst, once said, If you want to know about pleasure, you need to ask the mystics. Mystics know about enjoyment. Jouissance. This deep enjoyment that is both spiritual but also physical, right? So, so we need to have a spirituality that is able to be fleshly, that’s incarnate, because that’s part of that good news. And so that has to do with also enjoyment and not only suffering through in order, you know, for the cause to continue, or something like that. Yes, I mean, that may come. Yes, our testimony may lead us to places where we didn’t want to go. It can come, but we also need to celebrate and enjoy meanwhile and so not be so grim. If you look at the history of liberation theology, the ones who hung in there and continued with this liberative path were the ones who were also able to celebrate. Yes, and were not grim in that way.

I feel like that some of our early queer and trans movement people was like we fought in the streets, and then we were in the clubs dancing, and then we get up the next morning and we’d be doing. It’s like that kind of rhythm of play hard, work hard, love hard. And not to say that we’re careless with ourselves, with our spirits, with our hearts or with our bodies, but it is to say that if there are not these moments of spiritual reprieve where we are in community, and fully reminded, for me, at least, I know the longer I spend in books and in the computer without being with community, I lose the like deep drive in my soul of why I do this to begin with, and then as soon as I’m with our community again, having these conversations for TSV is a perfect example, I’m like, oh, there’s so much brilliance. This is worth all of that effort to get it out there, to help more people connect with this work. So I feel like 1,000% I’m there with you.

Yeah, and the matter of community is so important because it’s varied, right? It’s varied in age, it’s varied in all kinds of ways. And so how can we communicate in a way that’s intelligible to all these different folks? And then how can we be questioned by what they are bringing to the table in various ways? And so that really grounds us. I think, for me, church is that. Community of faith is that it’s being grounded. I often say that theologians have the privilege of having a community of accountability in a way that really almost nobody else has, because if you’re a sociologist or an anthropologist or a philosopher, you may have some communities of accountability, but you’re often not going to have that kind of every Sunday community that says, “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. What are you talking about?”

Well, I would love to shift us a little bit, a same line, but a different, a different pathway, which is going back a little bit to what you said around this idea of Mother God. And so I want to just return your Trinity. Some of the work that you’re doing around going deeper and giving a fresh, new, ancient look at some of the roles that are part of the Trinity that don’t get spoken to often, or that look in a new way. I can imagine somebody hearing our episode and hearing you say, thinking about the Holy Spirit, and again, that study that field is Pneumatology, thinking about that in this way of “mother”. When I asked people, have you ever heard a feminine pronoun, ever anybody saying, Dear Mother God, or anything like that in your church? I can count on one hand of the hundreds of people that I’ve asked that question to, I can count on one hand the number of people who said yes. And so I think it might be shocking or a jolt to hear you just casually talk about the Holy Spirit as mother and I know you have work coming up on Pneumatology. Will you tell us a little bit about how does that work for you? How do you wrap your mind around that?

Sure, sure. One of the things that struck me when I was a young professor, was one of my older colleagues, Néstor Míguez, who’s a New Testament scholar, saying one time, “You want to talk about the Bible, let’s talk about the Bible. Let’s look seriously at the Bible.” In other words, you think that these very closed ideas are based in the Bible, but when you start looking closely at that text, maybe you’ll find something else. And one of the things that I find in John 3, which is beloved of some folks because of John 3:16, right? “For God so loved the world…” Jesus is talking about being born again, but how we’re born of the Spirit. So the Spirit in that text, in John 3, is being described as our mother, from whom we are to be born again. Which makes the waters of baptism an amniotic fluid of the Spirit.

Wow.

Which makes me love baptism by immersion all the more because of all those waters, the deep waters of the Spirit.

As a Baptist you would!

Yes. So they can also, you know, they can also be by aspersion, but there’s something so powerful as someone who has also had children physically, to think about that commitment of God as our mother, as the mother who is the Spirit. But the Spirit is also our midwife. Romans 8. And the Spirit is helping this new thing that has never happened before come to life. So we have two kind of female oriented figures in John and in Paul in Romans to guide us in this reflection, which I find very interesting. And you know, when I had my first baby, she was in a position where her head was down, but she was looking upwards. It’s called occipital sacral position, and so that’s very hard to push out. And the midwife, who was with me in Argentina, you would have a physician, but you’d also have your midwife with you in birth, and this is no drugs, natural childbirth, the whole thing. She actually put her knee at the top of my stomach and pushed. And my husband, who was with us, was like, “What is she doing? She looks like she’s about to squash you.” But that pressure that she put was the exact thing that I needed to give that push to bring the child into the world, right?

Isn’t that a word? My goodness.

And so I always think of that big, rather robust knee of that midwife helping push out new life into the world, right?

But not without pain, not without struggle.

Not without pain, no, not without pain. But as Jesus said, then the new life is worth it, right? And you celebrate the new life. So those are two images of the motherhood of the third person. I would not limit motherhood to any one of the three divine persons of the Trinity. The Father, or the first person, is depicted in motherly terms in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere. In medieval piety, Jesus was considered to be our mother by people such as Anselm, who has beautiful language about Christ our mother. He’s well known for the satisfaction theory of the atonement, but he has some very beautiful things to read that we should read instead.

Before we jump to the next one, I want to ask what you thought about this moment on the cross where the spear is placed in Jesus’ side. And some people talk about that also being an amniotic fluid, because water, quote unquote, water and blood run out. And it was shocking to me when the first time I learned somebody said, well, when you pierce someone’s side, it isn’t water that comes out. That’s a birth metaphor. Would you include that in that perspective?

Absolutely. Medieval piety made a whole lot of that, and that’s where Anselm is coming from. And there are many images of a kind of divine vulva where Christ is crucified, but there’s a kind of oval mandorla-like vulva surrounding, which symbolizes Jesus as our mother. And indeed, we are born of his side, and he feeds us with his blood and with his own flesh in the Eucharist. And the ancient symbol of the pelican, who was also thought in ancient times to pluck its own blood to give to the babies when it was necessary. And really, in reality, the pelican was eating bloody things and getting red on its chest feathers. But that was interpreted as a self-sacrificial gesture on the part of the pelican, the female pelican, and that was understood to be a symbol of Christ. So Christ the mother, the mother bird, the mother out of whom our new life is born. And certainly there was a whole lot of medieval piety and iconography in Europe around those symbols which people are just blown away by. So, you know, when you have fundamentalism, which is a fairly modern phenomenon, yeah, of certainty, absolute certainty about how something should be interpreted, that is not the Christian tradition.

At any point in time.

No, no, no. And the characteristic of fundamentalism is to confuse your own interpretation of something with absolute truth. We don’t have access to that. We only have interpretations which can be further closer or further away from the way of Jesus, right? But we don’t have absolute truth. That would be considering ourselves to be God. So what does Augustine say when he talks about hermeneutics, interpretation of Scripture? Another guy that we need to reread, because he has some really great stuff.

Along with the terrible stuff.

Along with some of the terrible stuff. And often how that’s been interpreted as well. Yeah, I call these guys my brothers.

Do you? I just want to throw them out. So I’m grateful that there are people who are willing to keep them.

They’re siblings, and we’ve got stuff to learn from them, but we don’t have to accept everything. I have a theory or an interpretation that I call something against something. Like Augustine against Augustine, Paul against Paul. And so you take the good parts, the liberatory parts of anybody, any thinker, including myself, and use them to test the more negative parts. And so Augustine says, look, if any interpretation leads to love of neighbor, love of oneself and love of God — he includes love of oneself in that triad — then that’s a good interpretation. Any interpretation. There’s a multitude of interpretations. What they need to do is lead to love. So he gives us the criterion to say, you know, Augustine, you wrote some things. Let me use your own interpretation to say that some of that doesn’t lead to love, right? And Paul likewise says, look, if even an angel of God says to you something that’s against the Good News of the Gospel, let that one be anathema. And even if I myself am used in that way, let me be anathema. So I’m like, thank you, Paul. You just gave me a way to critique the ways that your supposed writings have been weaponized.

That’s a beautiful way to talk about Paul, because some of the most empowering pieces of the New Testament are in Paul and some of the most oppressive pieces are in Paul.

That’s right. I wrote a book on Galatians, and one of the things that I learned in writing that book was how he shifts from a kind of phallocentrism in the first part of the book, where he’s very focused on circumcision and what is or is not done with the penis, to positioning himself as a mother of the congregation. So he does a kind of gender bending in that letter that is just very interesting. And so Anselm picks up on this in his prayers, and he talks about Paul as mother. Wow, not just Jesus as mother. So there are, you know, theology is really worth going into deeply.

Yes, I love that so much. I’m a huge fan of the Bible and a huge fan of theology, and I find it endlessly interesting, because there’s always more. And being of a religion and a book that has a couple of millennia, there’s so much to engage with, but there are always these surprising places that every single day I feel like I’m learning something else that surprises me. And I would think, after this long of trying to learn and grow, that it wouldn’t be so much still, but there just is so much that’s shocking. So I also want to encourage folks who are listening, who might be thinking about things like theological education, that you don’t have to necessarily know what you’re going to do with it. You don’t necessarily have to be a professor, but there is, if you take your faith seriously, it is worth seriously studying it, rather than just taking what we’re told as like, this is what’s true. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told by conservative folks it’s right there in black and white in English. And I’m like, okay, yes. And I wonder if you have a word for us and for folks who are listening, who either have kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater of like, you know, religion, this religion thing is so toxic because of lived experiences, or who are curious and who really want to know more. Like, what does theology have to say to us in this political moment, in this time in the world, in this moment where we now have AI and fake news and war and genocide? Like what is it that you, I see you as such a core theologian and your work as such a core part of so many folks’ queer theologies, feminist theologies. I’m wondering what you think, what does it have to offer us in this moment, particularly those of us who have never lived through a dictatorship before? What does theology, this study, this serious study, have to do?

I mean, that’s such a profound question. I am part of the racial justice team at my church, and we’re going to have a retreat this weekend. And one of the things I want to talk about is the power of prayer and of contemplation in a time such as this, in this country, in the United States. Because there are so many things pulling at our attention, and so the desire of the dominant forces is to fracture our attention and put fear into us so that we are immobilized. Yes, but prayer focuses our attention. Contemplation focuses our attention. And love casts out fear. So we can’t afford not to take advantage of this amazing possibility of contemplative prayer and of not saying thoughts and prayers, but actually following that example that Jesus gave us, of let’s pray. And that may seem like a lame suggestion, but I suggest that it’s something incredibly powerful to center ourselves and to realize, okay, what is the thing we should be concentrating on? Because we cannot fight all of the battles and all of the fronts right now, but we’re called to be faithful in specific ways. And studying resistance in the Second World War, I’ve been reading Jacques Sémelin. He’s a French writer who talks about civil resistance, because that resistance in France is so famous, right, that we have all of these ideas of armed resistance, but there was civil resistance in France and elsewhere that was amazing that we don’t even know about. For example, he tells the story of some women who were not Jewish, but married to Jewish men in Berlin, who go out and say, when the Nazis want to take their husbands, we’re not going to let you do this. And they go out publicly to defend these spouses and partners. And they have success. Wow. So, you know, but we don’t know these stories. And he talks about why is it that in some countries, so many Jews were taken and in others almost none? What were the ways that people resisted? And I’m very interested in studying this and learning for our own circumstance, how to live out this nonviolent civil resistance in effective ways. And one of the things that he mentions is the importance of maintaining your cultural values, your humanist or religious values, yes, in a time when there’s a barrage that is dehumanizing, that is trying to destroy everything that is beautiful or true or good, till you almost forget that it ever existed. And he said that one of the functions that civil resistance has is to hang on to those values that are beautiful, good and true, that will help us reconstruct when we have a chance. Because if we allow everything to be destroyed, there’ll be nothing with which to reconstruct. So theology in this moment has a value. One, it teaches you how to think critically, how to read carefully, how to sift through information in a way that is cunning as a serpent, but mild as a dove, right? Jesus taught us to be very suspicious about religious discourse that is dehumanizing, even if it says “Lord, Lord.” So it helps us with that critical thinking. It helps us with retrieval. How do we get something good even out of the bad things? How are we able to subsist? And you know, Luke 21, Jesus has that little apocalypse, and he’s talking about these bad things are going to happen. These institutions, the temple that you think is so strong, nothing’s going to be left. And you know what? There are going to be tsunamis and there are going to be earthquakes and there are going to be fires and there are going to be wars. Jesus doesn’t bring up the theodicy question. He doesn’t say, where’s the good God in the middle of all this? He just says, don’t be afraid. You continue your path with determination, with this kind of tenacity that we talked about, this irreverence, right? And you know what? Even your family is going to hate you. The bad news doesn’t stop in that passage. But don’t worry too much, because you can’t anticipate every circumstance. Just focus and the Holy Spirit will give you the words that you need. He says, a mouth and wisdom. So this idea of, I’ll give you the words, or I’ll give you the silence according to what you need, and the Spirit will be with you, or the wisdom will be with you. So that passage can teach us a lot, and I’m giving you an example of how to retrieve from the Gospel stuff that will help us right now. It can help you not worry, not be afraid, not be fearful, because then we can’t think well, we can’t act well because we’re overly fearful. Let’s relax. Let’s understand that the Spirit will help us discern how to be wise, and to continue along this path where we don’t hate the enemy, because this is key. We don’t want to mirror the enemy. We don’t want to do the counter-identification. But rather, in prayer, we are able to go outside of that logic toward that dis-identification that doesn’t dehumanize us. Because if we fall into hating those who hate us, then we’re no different than they are, right? So there’s a lot of spiritual strength that is needed right now. Theology, a liberating reading of Scripture, community. These are incredibly strong elements that are part of what we can do as people of faith, alongside the big marches, which are also needed. And the saying, no, no, I’m not going to follow this in times that are quite extreme. There’s a cruelty at play that is quite breathtaking and hurtful and that is undeniable.

Yes, I think holding on to our humanity, at least for me in this moment, it is remembering who I am as a beloved child of God that allows my heart to continue to break for others, and demands that I hold on to with every shred of my being, my own humanity. Whether it’s kindness, whether it’s ethics, whether it’s practice of remembering who I am and who we are. And that feels like that is something that cannot be easily taken away, and that religion has to offer us at its best, has to offer us that identity.

Right, right. And you know what’s happening in this country. It’s not new. It is a new iteration of the very worst of the history. But you know, even FDR put people in concentration camps, put Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Andrew Jackson was also of a stripe similar to this administration. So these things are not new. The Black church is a resource also for us right now. Not every Black church, but many. Of how to resist this logic of annihilation of those who are not straight white people or trying to pass for such. So we have resources, spiritual resources, that are helpful. And so even though religion can be used in awful ways, and I certainly don’t doubt that, that’s not everything. That’s not the whole picture, right? And so we are in difficult times, but we do have resources.

Yes, and it’s ours also. It’s not that it just belongs to those who use it as a weapon, but it also belongs to those of us on the margins, and maybe even more centrally so. It belongs to us as that source of companionship, accompaniment, empowerment and fortitude.

Oh yes, absolutely. I do think so. If you look at who Jesus prioritized, I think you have your answer right there, right?

Absolutely. Well, let’s wrap up. I can’t believe how fast this time has gone. I feel like we could talk forever. But I do want to always include, for those of us who are listening, where you come from. So who are the ancestors that you pull from that you claim, whether they are theorists, whether they are part of your own family bloodline, whether they’re cultural, whether they’re spiritual and religious or divinity? Like, where do you go? Where’s your well or your fount of fortitude, of strength, of reminders of who you are when you need that?

That’s such a great question. And you know, there’s such a cloud of witnesses.

Amen.

But recently, one of my colleagues retired, and they had an iconographer make an icon for him as a goodbye present of his favorite saint. And when they did that, when my colleagues did that, I thought, I wonder who I would choose, you know, this kind of thing. Who would I want on my icon? And I thought, las tres Marías, the three Marys: Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and Mary of Nazareth. Because Mary Magdalene, to me, is this rebellious, irreverent, strong woman, disciple, the first witness of the resurrection, the preacher to the preachers. Amazing. Amazing, misrepresented woman, right? They tried to make her into something she was not. Amazing, amazing figure that appears not only in the Gospels, but also even in the apocryphal gospels later, right? And then you have Mary of Bethany, whom, I mean, I love both Martha and Mary, but Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. She was a theologian, right? Martha was great because she’s the first one to really recognize that Christ is the Messiah, and she has this declaration that is even more powerful than Peter’s because she doesn’t get into trouble later with Jesus as Peter does. But Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, is very powerful, and that he defends her right to do so, because that was to be a student of a rabbi. That’s what that is, right? And then Mary of Nazareth, who, you know, I grew up with in Argentina, surrounded by her. And as a Protestant, you know, we were like, “Oh no, we don’t do that. That’s not our devotion.” But she, as I had kids, and my girls loved Mary, just naturally, because it was una mamá con un bebé, a mom with a baby. And my older daughter would say, “Mommy, Dios con su mamá!” You know, when she was little, “God with God with his mother.” And I was like, wow. Okay, I’ve come to love her as well, very much. So, and the tradition confuses the three Marys and conflates them. And that happens with women. Our particularities are denied. We’re made into a collective without any particularity. So the thought that there are three of them, and then the three stars in the southern hemisphere sky, las tres Marías, that are also very close to the Cruz del Sur, those are my kind of constellations that I love in the south. So those are kind of the biblical characters. And then there’s so many more from history. Sor Juana. Julian. Many more that are the awichas, as we say in South America, the ancestors, the female ancestors. Not to speak of my grandmother, my mom, my sister, you know, strong female women who have formed me. And you know, frankly, my students who have taught me so much and inspire me. So there’s a renewal that comes in the younger generations, which is just very satisfying.

Yes, we are grateful for your work and your being in the world. And thank you so much for being part of Teología Sin Vergüenza. This was an amazing episode.

Thanks so much for having me. It was lots of fun.

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel, and find us on social media @soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish. Cuídate mucho, and remember we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to, even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful to theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer, feminist, Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Hey y’all. Welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. My guest today is Belén Morales, who is a Mexi Salvi Queer lesbian from Oakland, California. They’re passionate about Queer liberation inside and outside of the church. And Belén is a nonprofit strategist and brilliant theologian who works with all kinds of social justice organizations and enjoys reading and movies and dance parties and family. She’s trained in biblical studies and systematic and philosophical theology. You’re gonna love it. Stay tuned. Hi, Belén.

Hi! I’m so happy to be here.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza! I’m so glad to have you. I’ve been wanting to have an episode with you for seasons and seasons, so I’m like, yes, we finally got it. I’m so glad.

I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Of course. All right, let’s start with the same question as always. Do you identify as a sinvergüenza, why or why not? And because we’re in English this season and folks who don’t have access to Spanish, might not know the word sinvergüenza, if you can tell us like what does that word mean to you? Do you have any experience with it growing up? Um, anything about your sinvergüenzura and how you identify would be awesome.

Yes. So I heard sinvergüenza a lot growing up, always in a negative context. And so what it means to me is one without shame. And growing up as an evangelical in the independentist fund, fundamentalist Baptist world, uh, shame, you had to have shame. Um, being a human was being, uh, just being fully human was of shame. Being a sinful human was shame to be human was to be sinful and to be distant from God. So, um, I heard sinvergüenza a lot, um, externally too. You know, I grew up in the Bay Area. My church was in the middle of the Mission District in San Francisco. So, you know, seeing people, um, del mundo, of the world, you know. They’re a bunch of sinvergüenzas, and, um, to me now, um, it’s such a powerful, powerful term. I’m so grateful that there’s been this reclamation that’s been led from Sinvergüenza, um, around the world itself. Um, ’cause I, I do live without shame and I think that’s a, a divine gift. Um, and we could talk about more of what that means later. But, um, yeah, those are my initial thoughts.

Yes. Yes, sinvergüenza. And I do feel like there are these times where we can reclaim those things that were used against us in ways that feel powerful. And, um, I’m grateful for all of our community who has kind of leaned in and we have folks who may identify with one piece of our Queer feminist theology or a different piece, and it’s like a wide umbrella. But what we have in common is like almost all of us have a very lived and real experience with the sinvergüenzura and doing the shedding of shame. And one of the things talking about growing up where you did, I also grew up in a very like progressive place in Asheville, North Carolina. And I remember that growing up. I had no idea that I lived in a liberal place. Like no clue that we had had like a lesbian mayor when I was growing up because my community was a community of like white Appalachian mountain folk who had been there for generations and generations, and my entire life was centered around church. And so it was hyper conservative and fundamentalist, but I had no idea because. I was so insulated, I couldn’t even read like the community outside of that insulation. So you talking about growing up in a fundamentalist context, but in San Francisco, I’m like, tell us a little bit about that experience. ‘Cause I know we have that in common and do you have a moment where you were like, oh, thinking back, you can see that intersection?

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’m totally with you. I was so disconnected from that world, from, you know, queerness, from, um, even like, radical political thought, right? I grew up in, uh, my church was in San Francisco, but I grew up in Oakland. I didn’t know who the Black Panthers were until I wasn’t in college. Um, and I was so, which is so crazy to think about now, or so, like, like it just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, it does make sense ’cause that’s a project of, of fundamentalism. The patriarchy is to cut you off from your roots. Um, and that means a million different things. But, um, yeah, I, you know, my. My world was so small, um, growing up, um, immigrant family. It was an immigrant church and, you know, my whole social life was the church. I wasn’t allowed to really do anything but go to church, you know, after school activities. Even having like going over to people’s houses, friends from school, like that was like a hard no. Um, ’cause everything revolved around the church. Um, and so, yeah, my only relationship to like my geographic location was like this was, they were bad and evil and going to hell. Mm-hmm. And we were like the shining light on top of the hill, salt of their earth, you know? Yeah. And it wasn’t even like a, we have to go save them. I think there was partly that, but it was al- it was almost like they are, um, loving their sin. They, this is like a hopeless, um, campaign with them. We need to minister to other people because they’re, they clearly wanna go to hell. Yes. Um, and my, the biggest kind of interaction I remember having as a really vivid memory of. I was probably like seven or eight, and there was a bookstore right next to the church. And um, on Sundays we were there like all day. And so when we had a break between services, um, you know, we’d go to the bookstore, we’d go whatever. And so I was there. I think I was with a, parents, um, with one of my parents, I’m pretty sure. And I remember being at the bookstore, we’re about to buy something and then I look over and there is like the LGBT section in a rainbow. And my eye just kind of went big. And I literally remember whatever adult I was with just like putting their hand over my eyes and like turning me away. And that was just such a, like encapsulation of my childhood, um, in the church and being in San Francisco.

That feels like such an important metaphor for literally so many things, and I wanted to talk a little bit more about your experience of becoming politicized and coming into your queerness. And I think that folks assume, like if you’re from somewhere like San Francisco or Oakland, if you’re from a big city, then of course you will have had this very like connected understanding of how the world works and the real world and you know, those kinds of things. But I think the church is a perfect example of how some of us are so insulated that it takes us a long time to get words and get frameworks to, for, to make sense of the world outside of that church world. And so it makes sense to me that we often are like complicit in our own small world-ness because that’s the logic that we have been instilled with. And so that process I think is so important for people to know. One, it’s never too late, and two, it is a process and you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be like the most, like, have all the history memorized and repeatable to be welcome in our community. And that is about us telling our stories of like, how do we come into consciousness? Because I was definitely, I mean, I was surrounded in an almost all white environment. And so the logics of white supremacy and stuff just were what was true, but it took like, I was well into college, out of college in my twenties, like before I even connected the dots like racism and xenophobia and things like that. So tell us about your experience.

Woo. Where do I even start? Because it was a journey. Yeah, friend. It was a journey. It took me so long and yeah, I’ve had to do like work in therapy around like, it’s okay that it took me a long time because how, I grew up, I was so instilled with white supremacy, patriarchy, all of the things that were, um, like the DNA of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, which start was started by Jack Hyles, who was one of the less successful religious right um, founders from the eighties.

And so maybe tell us a little bit more about them, because maybe folks don’t know about that church.

Yeah. So, um, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement started in the eighties, uh, maybe in the seventies, but it kind of rose with prominence, um, with the religious right. Yeah. And so it is, um, very, um, I, I think what sets them aside from a lot of conservative evangelicals is their acute hatred of women. Like the misogyny was really, really intense. And I know misogyny isn’t intense in a lot of denominations, but it was very much about, like, it was centered around the submissiveness of women. And really, and, and this is why it took me so long to come into my queerness, like the inherent un untrust, untrusted worthiness, how inherently untrusted were, uh, women were. Um, you know, from the really like blaming all of human sin on Eve, um, yeah. And, and, and so forth, right? Yeah. And so, um, I think that’s where, and then just like the rest of it, like I didn’t know white people growing up. I grew up in Oakland in the nineties, you know, in Fruitville there weren’t a lot of white people around. Same in the mission in San Francisco, but like, the way that this church upheld white supremacy because of the theological beliefs, like all of them did. Um, it was also very Republican because a lot of folks in the church were, had, um, what’s the word? Uh, amnesty, immigration amnesty, because under the Reagan presidency, of course, what they didn’t have the political, political education to know is that all the co, all the issues in their countries of origin were because of American policies. But, you know, they didn’t have the, the education to put that together. So, um, so all that being said, it was, um, I, you know, I grew up in that church till I was about 15, had family dynamics, moved away from that church. Um, and then there is a lot of la- what I thought, looking back kinda lateral moves, but maybe like 0.2% more progressive moves that I had to make.

That counts, every bit counts!

Um, to get to where I am now every Yes. Yeah. And, and that’s what I needed. I couldn’t do it all at once, right? Like, it was just impossible for me to get there. ‘Cause there was so much undoing I had to do. I had to undo number one, the misogyny was so intense, like I didn’t trust myself, right? Yes. Um, I had to undo the, of course, the white supremacy, the patriarchy, the, the need for like the, the belief that he needed like a man around. Mm. Um, and that men like held systems together and that they were, that they were inherently trustworthy, that they were inherently leaders. Um, yes. And which made no sense, right? Because we got this from the pulpit. But in my realities. Yep. The, the men were like completely useless. Like they didn’t know how to, you know, do anything. They couldn’t even wash a dish, cook a meal, take care of the kids. Like the women did all of the things. Yeah. Um, even like put church stuff together. Right? Um, and so there was just so much, um, cognitive dissonance with what I was preached about and I was in the church like three times a week. Like it was, yeah, it was intense, right? Like it was three times a week, but like all day on Sundays. It was my life. It was like the indoctrination, you know, like, yeah. It was so intense. Um, and so then I went to a non-denominational white church, which non-denominational, in my opinion, it’s kind of like Baptist light. Um, so I went from like God being super scary. I was afraid all the time. My nervous system was totally rattled like all the time. ’cause God was always watching me, like the elf on the shelf guy. And then going to

Like Santa.

Literally, but like bad Santa. Um, and then going to like this white church that was more, Jesus is your buddy, okay. Jesus. And they still had conservative beliefs, right? It still, at the end of the day we’re homophobic and patriarchal, but it was a different framework of like, Jesus cares about you, like actually cares about you, and, and you don’t have to be afraid to talk to Jesus. It was very much about like personal relationship with Jesus. I grew up with more of like a fearful, top down relationship with God. So it like morphed right? Uhhuh. Um, and then in high school I just became, I was super nerdy. I was like a religious history nerd. I was reading like Karen Armstrong and like, uh, just like, like histories of the church because I grew up believing and being taught that the god, that God just dropped the Bible from heaven. And God wrote it, you know? Mm-hmm. Pulled up Google Docs

In English.

In English! No, in Spanish, actually. They know about Spanish. Okay. And, and that was it, you know? And so it was so mind blowing to me to just learn about the history of the, like, the Bible, um, how the Bible came to be, who decided what was in the Bible. And from then on I was like 16, 17, reading this stuff. Right. And from then on, like, it was very much a Pauline experience of like scales falling from my eyes, starting to really see like, whoa, like what I, I was kind of right as a kid. Like I, I did believe in God and, and there was something to this God thing, but like those men had it so wrong. Yeah. Um, and from then I kind of went to, I left that church for different reasons. Then I went to another church that was another white church. It was an Evangelical covenant church. That was a very much lateral from the, from the prior one. I thought it was a little bit more open and accepting. They weren’t. Um, but at that point I had started grad school, so I did my undergrad and biblical studies at a Pentecostal university founded by a woman, which as a kid that would’ve been like super progressive.

Yes. Radical.

Which is, like, really nuts to think about that. That would be, like, radical. ‘Cause it was founded by a woman and that was something, the baptism ab-, the IBF definitely didn’t, or IFB didn’t agree with at all. Um, and so I, and it was still super conservative, it was Pentecostal, right. But I did my undergrad and biblical studies, um, that was really illuminating. And then I did my, uh, master’s in theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. So it was really an interesting shift because my undergrad was like a very Brown and Black school with really conservative theology. And then my grad school was a very white school with a lot more liberal progressive theology. So it’s kind of like, a. It was a lot of learning, a lot of unlearning. Um, but it wasn’t until really after grad school that it had more of, like, a racial consciousness. Mm. Um, I think grad school really helped me open up my mind to, there are many ways to be a Christian. You know, the rapture started, like the belief about the rapture started like 300 years ago. Like, ain’t nobody believed that. And it’s like, uniquely American too.

Um, wait, wait, wait until like, wait. Tell us, tell us a little bit more before you continue because some people

Sorry, I’m like, rambling.

hearing this show. No, I love it. This is exactly what we’re here for. But I wanna put an exclamation point in that because for sure there will be people on this podcast who are hearing that the rapture is not like in Jesus’ mouth from like, you know, a thousand million years ago, before even Jesus showed up in the scripture and prophecy like, this is gonna be an exclamation point. So I wanna pause so you can tell us a little bit more because rapture, I don’t know how you were growing up, but I swear every time I came in the house and my grandmother wasn’t there and I expected her to be there, the first thing outta my brain was like, oh my God, rapture happened. And I’ve been left behind. Also the Left Behind series. So messed up.

Yes. So messed up. Yeah, I, they like rolled in the TV at my church so we could watch Left Behind. Like, that was the only movie we’re allowed to watch there. Um, yeah.

So rapture.

Yeah. My first anxiety attacks were about the rapture. Like I was super young. I would check in on my mom’s room to see if my dad was there. I’d be like, maybe he did get left behind, but if my mom wasn’t there, I’d freak out. So yeah, I learned through school, um, and through historical study of Christianity that so many of the things that evangelicals like propped up today as having like, been true always like the rapture, like Zionism, you know, the state of Israel. Um, these things happened in a very recent memory and, and, and very uniquely American too, which is what also tripped me up. If you go to like, um, you know, other countries, the, there, the rapture theology really isn’t as much like, prominent. Um, and so central to so much evangelical belief. Um, I was really into like, the study of the end times when I was in college. Mm-hmm. Um. Eschatology it’s also called. Yeah. And you know, reading like the scripture around the rapture, like it just had no historical precedence and it really gained traction after, um, around the Great Awakening, um, which was after the Enlightenment. It was like, kind of, the religious, like backlash to mm-hmm scientific discovery. It’s because they felt like they were losing control, like in the public square, um, and losing control of people. Wow. And usually these fear tactics, like the invention of hell, the invention of the rapture, um, are used to control people for power, for money. I mean, you know, all the, all the usual hits. Um, and so really, really learning Christian history saved me good. Um, because it was like, the church has not always looked like this. The church has looked like all kinds of people and Queer people’s. We’ve always been here. We are the church. And so I had spent so much of my undergrad and in these churches arguing about. Um, you know, can, can Gays be Christian and like those conversations. And then I had this aha moment, you know, towards the end of grad school of like, of course we can, like, this conversation is so silly. We’ve always been here. Yeah. We, like, we are, not only do we belong at the table, like we are the table. Yeah. Um, and so that, um, so I kind of had a little bit more of like, my Queer awakening before even like my racial, uh, consciousness. Um, which really honestly didn’t happen until Black Lives Matter movement started. Mm. Um, and then I was able to connect the dots because I started reading James Cone, um, God of the oppressed. I started reading the mujerista theologies. Um, and, and, and then they all came together for me. And then, you know, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, like all, it’s all connected. Um, yeah. And, and yeah. And, and that took a long time. You know, I was in my late twenties when, when most of this happened. So, um. Yeah, that’s kind of how I got there.

Amazing. I know it feels late, but I don’t think it is late. Like, we each, each of us who are willing to do the work go on a journey and that journey takes us all over the place. And so I just do believe, like we do figure it out as soon as we can. And it’s the unwillingness to try that makes us, you know, that is the, that’s the late part, is the like close heartedness to things that we feel in our bodies, in our dissonance. I wanna go back to this self-trust thing because I think that that like demonization of our flesh and particularly female flesh, like assigned female, trans female, it doesn’t matter, but it’s the femininity that has to be, you know, just squashed out of us and seen as something that not only. Isn’t valid and we should and we shouldn’t listen to, but something really dangerous. Like we are supposed to kill all of those pieces within us that tell us no or yes. And then once that is sufficiently, you know, squashed down, then we can rely on our external brothers, fathers, priests, preachers, whatever, to, to guide us in what is true about our own bodies, our own lives, all of those things. So I know you to be somebody who has worked really hard on that self-trust, and I’m curious if you will tell us a little bit about like, how you map that arc of trusting your body and trusting yourself and like what happened that made you be able to do that? Because I know so many folks who are searching for that path to come back to themselves once they know they need to. But how do we do that process? So how was that for you?

Oh, it’s such a long process and one that I’m still on. I don’t think that journey’s ever really complete when you grew up, you know, like we grew up. Um, and so it was a really long process. I think, uh, you know, one of the first big lessons I, I was taught as a kid was like, Jesus is God number one. Right. And I two is like, you are the worst. Like, you, like you are inherently sinful.

You deserve hell.

As a baby. You deserve hell it’s only by the grace of God that you’re here. Yeah. Um, and so it took me a really long time. I was able to like dismantle so much of like the, you know, the oppressive theologies, the new theologies like I mentioned around the rapture, you know, through kind of my study of Christian history. But like the self part was really hard, you know? Yeah. And even in college, um, I was like, you know, maybe it, maybe I should be, maybe I am and should be asexual. Yeah. Um, you know, ’cause I was reading like the first Christians, like, they even believe in marriage or sex or anything, you know? And. There was like this really separation from flesh, from spirit, because like if you read certain passages in the Bible, it’s like very, like flesh is no good. Um, and it’s also really gnostic understanding. Like some of the early gnostic Christians were very much like, it’s all about your spirit. Forget the body, forget the body, forget the body. And so in grad school, I started thinking about more of the body. Mm-hmm. Um, and um, I took some theologies of dance classes. I love, love a liberal seminary. Um, and like, and doing more embodiment practices was also in therapy at that point. So doing more embodiment practices and it was so uncomfortable for me. Really, really uncomfortable for me. Um.

There’s no dancing growing up.

No dancing. Yeah. I grew up in Footloose, like, truly like no dancing, certainly no red cowboy boots, like none of that. So, um, we would have secret dance parties, like for real. It was like literally footloose. It’s nuts. Um, so yeah, so it took, you know, it took some time for me to come into myself. Um, and I think that had to do with like, not trusting myself. One of the first, um, things that cults do is they tear down your sense of self. They tear down the individual completely, like down to the nubs, um, or even beyond so that they can rebuild you with only, uh, within like the community or the group. Yeah. Um, and so I felt like that happened to me really acutely in every church community that I was a part of until like my mid twenties. I mean, I had, you know, leaders even telling me like, you don’t know yourself. We know you, we will tell you what’s right for you. And, um, and yeah, and, and so it wasn’t until I started reading more, um, you know, feminist, um, uh, like Black scholars and, and really like learned about like, you know, um, and who was it? Oh, I’m, I’m seeing her name Zora Neale Hurston that says, um, that talked about how, you know, they will rewrite your story. I’m gonna butcher the quote, but like, they’re gonna rewrite your story and, and, and, and say that, you know, your life was great. Everything was great, even though that’s not your story, you know? Yes. And so a lot of people were writing my stories. And so, um, yeah. So, um, from then on I was, I really had to work and thank God for therapy. Shout out to Christina, my therapist. Yes. Um, on like, rebuilding that sense of self, that trust. Um, and it took a really long time and I, I, I’ve grown leaps and bounds around it. Um, and I’ve gotten older, you know, I’m almost 40. I’ve, I’ve, I, I think I’ve, I’ve made peace with a lot more of it. Um, and really forgiving myself for those times I haven’t trusted myself. Yeah. Um, and so, um, yeah, so that’s kind of, so it was through, through more study, um, through reading, uh, women’s stories, Queer people’s stories, and to like really take my power back. And that’s also like a therapy thing, right? It’s like taking your power back, having your own agency. Um, and it took, I think that was probably one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome. Um, even before like the racial consciousness, Queer consciousness, um, coming out to myself and then others. Coming out to myself was way harder. Um, but, um, that was like, kind of, the first, the, the first thing was like having to, or the hardest thing, rather, it was like the trust in myself. The trusted trust, my own narrative. Yes. Um, without apology.

Yeah. And if we trust ourselves, it opens the, the doors to so many other possibilities like creating our own possibilities for future, like choosing our own lives, like creating different ways of doing family, of doing life, of doing work. Yeah. Like there’s so much that is behind that door. And I think that’s why, I mean, Audre Lorde taught us about that erotic the yes. Whether it’s sexual, not sexual, exactly. But yes. And then no, how powerful that is and therefore why it has to be so demonized. And I think it’s like the farther we have to come, the longer that is. Because if you started repressing what you knew to be true about what you wanted for your body and your life when you were born, basically. Then that’s a long journey. And I think we need to give ourselves so much credit and permission to be on that journey. All of us who are listening, like we encourage therapy, we encourage all of those things that we do to try to recover that because it has, it feels like it has literally been stolen from us, and it is so powerful and it is ours. Like it is our birthright, it is our divine gift. So I just feel like we can’t talk about it enough.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of the things too that I meant to say was about, um. I mean, going back, going back to the Bible, like Jesus, Jesus became flesh. Yes. Like the flesh is important and it’s central and it’s good. Yeah. Um, and I think that was one of the things that was absolutely, you know, probably on purpose missing from like my childhood, um, uh, you know, religion was that the body is good. If it wasn’t, why would Jesus become flesh? What was the point of incarnation? Yes. Um, and so I think like having that in mind therapy, like when my therapist says, pull in all your resources like therapy and, and uh, and somatic, you know, practices and things like that, um, really helped me to, to come into my own sexuality, um, and pleasure and desire, like you mentioned, because I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to have any, um, and I strived to not have any Yes. For a long time.

Yes. And I just, yeah, I wanna just let that breathe for a second because it’s so critically important. And that was the same, like Jesus was fully human and fully God, but we mostly just talked about the fully God part, and we never talked about any of the fully flesh part unless it was like, you know, Jesus was bleeding on the cross. Or like the suffering of Jesus was the human part, but not all the rest of Jesus. And I think that that concept of like enfleshment was the, was the connector piece that I needed between theology and social justice. Because I was also taught like we don’t get involved with that messy politics stuff because that’s of the earth and that’s prince like principalities. And that we just like, we save ourselves for heaven and we build up our gifts for the afterlife and we keep to ourselves over here. ’cause the world already hates us and everybody’s going to hell anyway. I mean, like you were saying earlier, I was like the Methodist across the way, we’re going to, hell forget the Catholics and forget people of other religions. Right?

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Way off. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Just even just like the conservative Methodists were going to hell. So it was just like, yeah. So I think all of that connection of like, it took me longer to connect theology and Bible and Christianity with social justice because I thought that that was like sullying my spirit and my hands. And it wasn’t until I got a better Christology around God clearly cares about the flesh and the human condition now on this earth, in these bodies, not as something that should just be punished and discarded and disciplined. We use that word a lot. Discipline the body. Yeah. Um, but something that we should actually care about, which means we care about social justice issues, which means we care about people. That also the Bible has, there’s a ton of backup for it, but somehow I just

So much

skipped over that

So much. Yeah. It’s, it’s, and it’s, and that one, and it’s always over. Like, same, like we were never supposed to care about, you know, the poor. I mean, probably a lot of us were poor at the church, um, but that wasn’t like that wasn’t something that like, you know, like there wasn’t like a, Hey, let’s everybody gather and make sure there’s enough food for everybody. That’s not something that we did, um, even though the first Christians did and the fir- and like, they were really concerned about, you know, um, like social justice and that’s all throughout the prophets in the Hebrew Bible and that’s also in, um, some of the Pauline letters and certainly in what Jesus was talking about. You know, even just, like, in part of the Lord’s Prayer is giving us our daily bread. Like that is like a, a, like a need of the flesh. Flesh on the daily. Yes. Um. And yeah, it’s just, and that was absolutely overlooked because I think, um, it opens a can of worms, right?

Totally.

Like you start looking at inequality outside, you start looking at inequality inside, and church people don’t want you to do that.

Yeah. It was wild. Like we would go on mission trips, like, okay, so one, I grew up in a very poor church, like all poor white folk, and we did help each other, but it was like, a personal, like, we help sister so-and-so, or whatever. Even if it was like an abusive husband. It wasn’t the marriage that was the problem or the relationship, it was about the devil and it was about, like, the spiritual support, and we would provide, like I remember church ladies like providing food, but then when we were talking about the world, it was always like mission trips to far away places. Even within Appalachia, but, it was like a poor them and we are being good by helping them. But it was always conditioned, whatever benefit we were doing, whether it was helping rebuild houses or whatever, was directly predicated on people coming to the worship services.

Yep.

And we would count souls that we converted in exchange for these very basic things like shoes for kids and, like putting roofs on trailers. Like, it was basic human need. And it was, but it never felt like we were giving it freely. It felt like it was a very transactional, you come to these revival services, some of your kids, some of your adults are going to give their lives to Jesus Christ. And in exchange we will bless you by working on your house or your mother’s trailer or whatever. And now looking at it from this side, I’m like, oh, I so see it as an economic exchange rather than this like Christian morality, because good works were sinful. Like it wasn’t, we weren’t supposed about works.

Exactly right.

We were supposed to be about faith. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So

Yeah, just James be damned. Yeah.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Look at the Bible for those following along.

Yeah, yeah. So I just think about that.

It was highly controversial, right? Yeah, no, I, and I think ’cause their God was transactional, so we had to be transactional, right? Yeah. Their God was angry, so they were angry. Their God was oppressive. So they were oppressive. And I think it’s a direct reflection of, and somebody said at once, like, we build God in our image. Um, and uh, instead of the reverse. And so, yeah, I think all of those, like, because we didn’t do missions in my childhood church, but later in the evangelical church that the white evangelical churches I went to, you know, we went on missions and to Mexico usually it was really kind of a, a trip being there as like, being Mexican in Mexico, doing my missions work with these white folks. Wow. And like putting on church services and having to translate. It was very strange. Um, very, very intense.

Oh, friends.

I was like 17. Like, ugh. Um, but yeah, it’s, you know, it’s like, it has to be, that’s like, and then I think it also like, is part of capitalism, right? Like this like model of like relationships only being transactional. Like, we are going to give you something in order, you have, and then that makes a contract that you have to do this, you have to be saved, you have to, you know, come to the church service. And same like with, um, their version of God, right? Like, I’m going to be pious and not swear and, and not gamble in order for you to bless me in my life. Um, or like, not even bless you in your life, but like, so I can have, you know, treasures in heaven.

Yeah.

Um, it is such a transactional model, um, that really distorts what love is and what, you know, a relationship with spirituality God the divine can look like.

Yeah. I’m wondering if you will talk to us a little bit more about, you know, growing up in a predominantly Black and Brown community and church, but having theology that is white supremacist, because that is gonna bridge us to the next conversation I really wanna talk about, which is what’s happening with our community these days and who these ice people are who are acting as terrorists on behalf of the state. And I would love, I think that how you connect those dots is so critically important. So will you tell us a little bit about your experience and how you see that connecting to this political moment?

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for bringing that up. So, um. So we didn’t ever talk about white people in church. That wasn’t, it wasn’t something we talked about, you know, I saw the white people on TV like, Saved By the Bell. I thought those were all white people, like live like that, like Steve Martin and Father of the Bride was very formative to me. I was like, oh, all white, all white people have these kinds of houses and these kinds of lives. Right? And so, you know, we never talked in the home. And also, like my parents were immigrants. They came here in the eighties. Yeah. So they didn’t, also didn’t know about white culture like that. I mean, besides what they saw on TV as well. So, um, we never talked about whiteness white, people both in the church or at home. And so I, I had really no semblance of like, what it was. Um, if you told me, you know, as a kid that I was in a white supremacist church, I’d be like, that doesn’t make any sense. But Right. It really was so exemplifying that white. White supremacy does not need only white people to uphold white supremacy. Yes. Um, and I think this was mostly acute in the, in the, um, in the politics of it all. So it was very, like I said, it was an immigrant church, very Republican, Reagan. It was very much like America saved us from our countries. Mm. We come to America because the land of milk and honey, it’s the promised land. Mm-hmm. Um, where we have opportunity. I mean, my dad was from El Salvador, he fled the Civil War, right? Mm-hmm. So there is like, this, also this refugee mentality, again, not knowing that American intervention, um, was the, you know, seed of that war. Um, absolutely. So it was very much like thinking of America, in, as a very like, salvific saving entity. Yeah. Um, and so we had the American flag. We would do the pledge of allegiance at church.

At church.

All these Brown people doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Ooh. The idolatry jumps out it

On the altar. Did you have the like American flag on one side and the Christian flag on the and the other?

Christian flag? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and so it was a very pro, and my, my dad was very Republican. There I don’t really remember my mom talking about America like that, but um, but it was just in the air that we breathe, you know? We didn’t, I didn’t think twice about it, you know? And of course I did the Pledge of Allegiance at school as well. Um, but it was like this veneration of, of America and of, um, and of the colonizer. And so, um, it was, it was like, yeah, you know, our countries of origin like matter. There’s still pride in like being Mexican, Central, you know, Salvadorian, Nicaraguan, and all, and all the like, but there was also this acute pride in being American, whether they were like documented or not. Like, right. There was like this pride in being American and like one of the, um, and I was just thinking about this the other day, one of like the main career paths that was celebrated at church, for the men, was military service. Like one of, you know, one of the jóvenes, as we were called the jóvenes, mm-hmm. Um, uh, of, of my generation, you know, went to the Air Force and everybody was like, wow. Like you couldn’t be spending your time doing anything better. Of course, women were not, Yeah, encouraged to go to anything. Um, except for like the bi-, the Jack Hyles Bible School in Indiana. That was like, but only for like, a summer program. Like, don’t really get a degree. Um, you don’t need it.

So we could, so, so you could like, teach the children, Right?

Right. Just to teach, teach other women and the children. Yes. Um, and so, yeah, and so the American, the American patriotism, um, the, you know, was, was um, wrapped up in all of, in all of this. In a way that I didn’t realize was so problematic till later. And then now connecting to the current moment, you know, um, and this is true I think in a lot, lot of evangelical circles. Um, I don’t think the Catholics do the whole American thing as much. Um, or at least the Mexican Catholics, from my understanding. But like, the evangelicals love America so much and, and it makes sense, right? Because, um, uh, evangelicalism is also like, very acutely American. Um, like I talked about the rapture, these are really, really Amer- and Zionism. Like these are really American, um, uh, American ideologies that were, uh, made, um, kno-, more prolific because of the church. Yeah. Um, and so,

And supported with money and Bible study. Mm-hmm. And sermon seeds. Absolutely not organic

A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, Zionism was also in the air that we breathe, you know, the state of it. Yeah. I didn’t really get it like, as a kid, yeah, of course, but like, but I mean, we had like Mexicans and Nicaraguans walking around with like star, like, the, is the star of David. Like what? Like, you know, and they were like, judío, like Jewish by like, you know, ancestral heritage. And um, and again, it didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t understand. The, I did like, you know, we read about Jewish people of course in the Hebrew Bible, but like, it, it, those dots never connected for me as a kid. Um, but, but that’s what so much, um, what’s taught in so many individual churches, which is like, they’re so prominent all across America. And so it is not surprising to me to see so many Latine people, or Hispanic people as they prefer to be called, um, as ICE agents. Um, and I say Hispanic because that is the word that the colonizers gave us. Yes. Um, it is the people who have been colonized by Spain and folks find a lot of pride in that. Um,

So you weren’t surprised when we’ve been, like, when people have been unveiling border patrol and ICE agents that those were our people under those masks.

A hundred percent. I was not surprised. Disgusted, always. Yes. But not surprised because of, um, one, the military industrial complex is always gonna prey on vulnerable Black and Brown people. A hundred percent, yes. Like they need poor Black and Brown people to fight their wars. That has been true since the American Revolution. Um, it was true in Vietnam. It’s true now.

Yeah.

Um, and now their war is of course, um, around the world, with all their secret wars and whatnot, but also like the wars that they’re waging on people here, um, in the United States. So, um, of course they’re getting, um, you know, the signing bonuses, like all of these things. Like, just like how, the military preys and does recruitment at, you know, high school, low income, high schools. It’s the same, it’s the same spirit there. Um, and, and, and, and we have a sincere lack of political education for nuestra gente. Like I said, I didn’t know about the Black Panthers tales in college because I took an African-American history class and I was in Oakland, California for my whole life. Um, and so there is such a lack of political education for our people that’s accessible. Um, and, and, and this is why we have all these people upholding white supremacy because they will be happy to sell out their communities. And like people selling out their own communities for the sake of empire has is also as old as empire. Yes. Um, this has [00:43:00] always happened and is a strategy of the empire. Um, is to create certain pathways to success for certain people of the marginalized group so they can help control the marginalized group and, and so that they have this also this, um this fantasy that, that those select few will be part of the, the reigning class, but they’ll never be. They will absolutely never be white, um, in the way that they think that they’re white because they’re making $300,000 a year. You know, your last name is still Nuñez, honey. Like you’ll get beat by the police. Sorry. Even if you’re in a shitty Tesla. Can we swear? Sorry.

Yes, you can swear.

Okay, cool.

It’s a really interesting, I wanna, I wanna just connect those dots, make sure for our audience, because I do think there’s a lot of people who do not understand what the hell is going on, and so I think it’s important to connect those dots really explicitly.Because, I think political education is so critically important and we have prioritized, like, assimilation, being good, work, all of those things over those kinds of community education. So basically what you’re saying is connecting the dots between why would people from our own communities, children of immigrants, first gen, second gen, sometimes immigrants themselves, why would they work for the government that is kidnapping and like just terrorizing our communities? And one is about financial success, one is about lack of understanding the systems that they’re working for. Another one is about being part of vulnerable communities and they’re specifically being targeted. But there’s another piece that’s like the theological connection. Will you connect the dots for us around like, what would somebody, how could somebody who comes from an immigrant family, be, consider themselves a Christian, and participate in what’s happening in the domestic warfare against our own communities.

Yeah. And, you know, I said that there’s no political education. I wanna correct myself. There’s a lot of political education. Mm-hmm. Like, um, in, in the way that we’re taught in evangelical churches, it’s the, the politics is, um, I might, I think I froze. Okay. The politics is just conservative politics, white supremacist politics. Yeah. Um, and so I think kind of like what I was talking about, the project of, of cults, um, and white supremacy is to destroy the sense of self. And part of that is cutting off access to community ties. And so I think a lot of these ICE agents, they don’t consider themselves part of the community, a community at all. They consider themselves individual. There’s like individual intense, you know, individual, and that’s also evangelicalism, right? Like individual salvation. Um, and so this individualism like

Individual sin, not societal level sin, individual sin.

Individual sin. Right? Yeah. Right. And so they don’t, I, I think for a lot of these people, they would say they, that’s not their community. I’m not vulnerable. Um, and so, you know, any, and, and they’re cut out from their ancestors too. Um, about, and like ancestor practices

Talk about that.

Um, and, and, you know, ’cause trauma, you know Yeah. Trauma and, you know, family trauma, societal trauma. And a lot of, a lot of folks aren’t, aren’t given language, therapy, space to talk about these things. And so, um, I think, uh, theologically, you know, with the, with the infusion of American exceptionalism, infusing of American patriotism in our churches. It makes sense that so many people sign up for border patrol for ICE. Yeah. For the Air Force, uh, for the Marines, what have you. Because, um, like the, the best thing you can do in like those positions is, um, their, their God is one of power and dominion and, and con- and, and conquering God. Yeah. And so that to them is, is almost also the performing of their gender role. Um, yeah. And, and with that mixed with being cut off from your people, not even knowing who your people are or not even like identifying with your people. I mean, I, I think that’s why we are in this place.

Yeah. And it’s so surprising to me. And ironic and heartbreaking in all of the things mixed into one mush where we see so many people now who voted for the orange dude and then, is, are, like, but I didn’t think he meant me or my partner. Or my kid. Or my mother. And it’s like, what is, what happens in our, in our lack of connecting the dots, like our intentional silencing of those parts that help us understand ourselves as interdependent, that made you believe that this wasn’t gonna impact you. And then there’s this really heartbreaking piece around realizing that you are vulnerable, you are one of them, that you even yourself mm-hmm. Are talking about. Mm-hmm. And I don’t know what we’re, my hope is that we as a community can be open enough and soft hearted enough. To receive so many folks who are going to be in that process of connecting new dots or being surprised, heartbroken, hurt, realizing that they are not white, or that they’re never gonna be seen as white. Mm-hmm. That they are a part of the them that they are talking against or voting against or whatever. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know if I have that softness, but I, my best version does. I don’t know if this version does, but my best version Yeah. Does. Yes.

My Christianity has its limits. You know, I think, um, I, I, I, I, I hear you and I, and I think that there should be softness and care. Is it gonna come from me individually? I don’t know if that’s my particular ministry. I’m sure it’s somebody’s, um, but I think for me, that that patience has run out and it ran out a long time ago. Um, around 2000 November, 2016. Um, yep. I can pinpoint, um, because I’ve brought a, you know, I, I think that was the work of like most of my twenties, is trying to bring people along, trying to bring people along.

Yeah.

And just being so exhausted. I’m like, I can’t, all my energy is going to this. I, I can’t. I need to save myself. I need to take care of myself. Um, and so I think for some people that’s their ministry and God bless them forever. But, um, for me at this point, um, that’s not where I’m at. But I do think that there, um, that there should be entry points always, you know, like we said, like it’s a lifelong process for us. Some folks, it takes longer to get to political, racial consciousness. There’s different triggers that happen for folks that helps them get them there, and I’m glad they’re here. Um, but it’s like, it, it goes back to American individualism, like, oh, you don’t care. Yes. Unless, until it personally affected you. Like, that’s really bad. Like you have no empathy, no compassion.

Yes.

You know? Um, and, and it’s, and it’s hard, you know, and I, I think that’s when I struggle with being a Christian. ’cause I should have, maybe not should, but like, I would like the idea of having endless compassion. Um, but it’s, but it’s really hard. Um, yeah. Because, you know, this man has shown who he is for over a decade. Um, so it’s, it’s confusing to me that folks wouldn’t get that. I mean, it, yeah.

Yeah. I kind of stick with this passage in the Bible where, you know, Jesus says, you know, father, forgive them. And we always focus on the mm-hmm. Before they know not what they do, part. But I really feel very comforted by, this is not my first original thought. I learned it from other theologians and, and faith people of like, Jesus said, God, you do it ’cause I’m done with these people. Like I just don’t have to do it. So that really comforts me to be like, I can’t give that to God. God, can you please, um, yes. Can you please help out on this one? I do want to, to just touch one a, another touch around Zionism because you’ve talked about it a couple of times. I think it’s really, really, really important in our communities to talk about and I feel like it’s harder to talk about, or I see it being talked about less in our communities of color. And I’m wondering if you, you were saying like, it doesn’t make sense. I think it doesn’t make sense, still to me now a lot of the time. Yeah. Like I had to do a lot of re- reading, relearning, because I had this innate, it felt like innate, like default to yes, [00:52:00] Israel is a state, should exist and Jews should own it. And they should be able to protect themselves. And these narratives that just like nobody had actually said to me out loud, but were so clear that it, I, I’m embarrassed to say that it took me like reconnecting with my own humanity and empathy to be like, I actually don’t give a shit what is happening. This, like, what that theology is or what people deserve or don’t. Human beings deserve to live. Children deserve to live. People deserve sovereignty over the place where they live and reside. And so. I would love it if you would help, especially folks who maybe are hearing about like free Palestine or hearing words like genocide and feeling like those are big words and those are scary words. And maybe have a sense of like, but, but Zion is this holy place and, and Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. And like, will you help tease out a little bit? I think there’s a piece around what a government state is that is really important as compared to a people and, but any of the dots that you can connect for folks who are a part of like our community who are like, I don’t know much about what’s happening on the other side of the world ’cause we, we stick to these continents, pretty much. Um, but how that connects to religion and the, the colonizing white supremacist culture. How did you know about that? Yeah.

Yeah. So I wanna speak to what you said about how like, you kind of just like believe these things and not sure where they come from. Yeah. Um, I think, and I’m, I mean it might sound kind of like a joke, but I think it’s, I’m being sincere. Like, I think a lot of it comes from Left Behind. Um, like the movies,

You kidding?

Like the movies, The books? Those, like, there were huge,

I totally grew up on those. Yes

They were huge. And what was the; they were, I mean it’s, it’s eschatology, it’s like the end times, right? Yes. And like, some of, like the most, I mean, to me, images that stand out in my brain are like the two witnesses in Israel that need to get killed for the, the antichrist, you know? And it’s just like, you know, it’s this whole thing. And I think a lot of like, um, I think it’s kind of like in the back of a lot of like our head, like people who grew up in the evangelical church, kinda in the back of your head. But there is this belief of like, oh yeah, Israel needs to be a state. Um, which makes no sense biblically, one. Um, I think, and I heard this from a rabbi who was protesting Israel. Um, he said, um, how Jewish people are inherently nomadic. And that was like one of the big lessons that, you know, God was teaching them. Is, um, their, either their desire, deep desire for political power, um, for a state is didn’t really matter. Um, and so, um, and, and I think with the state of Israel, which has been existence since 1949, I mean, it’s within our

Not 2000 years.

No, not at all. It literally just, I mean, we have grandparents that age. Um, we have grandparents older than the state of Israel. Um, and so it is a classic tale of settler colonialism. It is, you know, it’s colonialism draped in religion, draped in a particular religion. It was after 19, um, after World War II. Um, and the Western powers, particularly, um, the United States, wanted power in that part of the world. Um, similar to what have, what’s happened in Iraq and you know, 25 years ago, um, it is always like the inventions of rapture, like the inventions of hell. It comes back to land, power and money. Um, and so we see we can connect these dots, um, with the, um, you know, there would be no genocide in Palestine if it wasn’t for American dollars. And why, and, and what is America’s like? They don’t care about no other country, like their safety, their freedom, like they care about, um, power and, and, um, and it’s a land grab. It’s a money grab. And, um, and you know, the October 7th of it all is, is clearly just an excuse to, um, have this ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Um, and we are reminded that Jesus was Palestinian. That Palestine was a mix of folks from different beliefs, different cultures. It has been, um, settled, colonized by different empires and entities for millennia. Yeah. Um, so, um, that’s something to remember. Um, and I mean, Jesus himself was also not particularly worried about political overthrows. Um, yeah, it was quite the opposite actually. Um, and so, um, I think we’re seeing that like American, uh, exceptionalism, uh, patriarchy, like just violent male patriarchy, um, really drives some of like the, the, the schools of belief that had to, that have to be in place for this [00:57:00] genocide to be happening.

Yeah. It was really helpful for me that there are so many Jews, like Jews for Justice and other Jewish groups who are at the front of this like, call of naming it genocide of like saying we can be for Jewish people without being for the state of Israel. Of Yes. Teaching us about, you know, the state of, is, the creation of the state of Israel was in and of itself antisemitic because a lot of other countries were like, we don’t want all these refugees and that, like Jewish refugee specifically. And so those, I feel so grateful for our, like brothers and sisters and siblings in Jewish activist communities who are doing so much lifting and, and labor. Of course, of course Palestinians everywhere doing all that they can. But I think it was helpful also to disconnect Zion as a concept, as a like. You know, even es eschatological like this in times kind of concept of like, this is our, this is our home from a physical place in the Middle East or the ancient near East. If we’re talking about the Bible that I’ve don’t know anything about, that I’m not a part of, and, and that connecting the, the, like the myth and the fantasy and the fairytale from real life human beings in a real place on the planet, I think is, is one of the strategies that helped me most, like dislodge that that notion that was embedded somewhere that I couldn’t even identify. And you blew my mind a little bit with that Left Behind series. Um. I’m wondering if it feels like the end times for you now, like, I’m like, this feels like the apocalypse or esco- eschatology feels like it is right here. And I hear that a lot. And I’m curious, as somebody who was like into that, studied it, looked at those things, what’s this moment feeling like for you? Does it feel like that? Did you debunk some of that stuff? And you’re like, that is connected to myth and tell, tell us, tell us, is it the end of the world? Like, how are you feeling?

But before I answer that, ’cause I Yeah. Have so many thoughts about that. Um, I wanna go back to about the state of Israel, just to, to wrap that up.

Yep.

I also think as, as, as Christians, we need to divest from states at all. The state of Israel, the state of the United States, the state of Mexico. I am an anarchist on most days. Okay. And I, I don’t believe in the veneration of any nation. Um, at all. Um, I think these systems, all, all of them, every state has our, are usually like founded by, especially the western ones, white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy, which has been a death sentence to our people since the beginning of all of those ideals. So I also like invite Christians to really problematize and think about their relationships, to citizenship, to the, the state, the country. Um, ’cause even I’ve seen like, you know, folks like, and, and I think, you know, I don’t really judge folks that bring the Mexican flags to the protest. It’s like, yeah, but that, that state’s not gonna save us either. Um, you know, looking at Mexican history, it’s not the best either. Um, especially the ways that our people have sold out to West sorry, go ahead.

That’s very Christian of you actually. It’s like That’s very Christian of you. Yes. It’s, yes. It’s to be like our p-, our, we owe our citizenship to God to a higher authority. We do not.

I know that’s right.

Belong to any nation. I’m like, that sounds very Christian

It’s, it’s, and to each other, you know, our Yeah. Our, our um, our loyalty, our allegiance to, to one another as well. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I just needed to say that. Uh, please say that bit. Absolutely. Um, and so the end times, I think we’ve experienced the end times many times. Mm-hmm. The world has ended in a million different ways for a million different people. We’re experiencing the, you know, the end times right now in Palestine. Yeah. Um, we’re exper- we experienced the end times in, uh, the Nakba, you know, in 1949, we’ve experienced the end times, um, with Jim Crow here, with the, the rise of slavery here, um, with the rise of the United States here, going that the state of it all. Um, and so, um, so there’s this poem by Nayyirah Waheed, um, that I actually painted on a canvas and it’s hanging in my, in my house. And it says I don’t pay attention to the world ended- ending. It has ended for me many times. And began again in the morning. I think for those of us who have studied eschatology, um, is, we’re also then students of resurrection. Yes. And so, and that’s one of the things that keeps me, uh, with my identity as a Christian. ’cause I so much believe in resurrection. Um, and resurrection can mean all kinds of things. I think we are also co-creators in resurrection. We’re co-creators in new worlds. And as much as we see empire falling. Um, empire rising. We are always in co-creation of creating something new, something better, um, something for our people, um, for our own salvation. So yes, the world is ending. It has ended before. Um, and a new one will begin again.

Yes. Uh, ugh. Yes. That gives me chills. I have one more question before we get to the final question, which is, I wonder what home is for you? What feels like home? Where feels like home? Feel who feels like home? Which connects to our last question, which is about ancestors. So you can answer that Yeah. However you want. But I’m curious. Home when we live in diaspora is a very complicated conversation. Yeah. And I’m curious what feels alive for you in that question.

Yeah. Um, I think about my physical location. Like I said, I’m from the Bay Area. I’m from Oakland. Specifically, and Oakland has, um, quite the reputation in, in the rest of the world. Um, and I think we have so much character and, um, grit. And it’s the home of so many political movements, so many incredible political leaders. Um, and so home to me is, is not only Oakland, but also just, I have such a amazing community here. I have such a amazing group of friends, Queer friends from all over with many different identities. Um, and my family, my, my, my, um, I live with my partner. My brother lives 15 minutes away. My mom lives half an hour north. And, um, they’re all home to me. Um, they make up so much of my, um, my hope, my inspiration, my will to get through shitty days. Um, and they are, they are my good news.

Amen. Amen. So then your cloud of witnesses, where is that fount of resilience and resistance? When you need to be reminded who you are and, and you are having those shitty days. Like who are in those cloud of witnesses, be they ancestors. You’ve already talked about your chosen and your family, um, close to you. Who else is in that, whether they be thinkers or theologians or cultural icons or family members? Who else do you put in that?

Yeah, so I have kind of like these, like silhouette ancestors that I think of, um, that kind of look like my mom. I don’t have, my mom doesn’t know her bio family. Um, my dad’s family, I’m not, I haven’t talked to my dad in over a decade and we were never really that close. So I don’t really know much about his side. Um, but I know that I come from a lineage of fighters because I’m a fighter and so is my mama. So they had to have been fighters too. So,

Yeah.

Um, I think of them, um, and I feel them, um, I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what their names are, but I I know them. Yes. Um, so I think of them. And then my Queer ancestors, I just finished a Tourmaline’s book on Marsha P. Johnson. And, um, I think of Sylvia Rivera. Um, I think of Gloria Anzaldúa. I think of all the amazing, um, Black and Brown, you know, Queer ancestors that we’ve had, and all Queer ancestors really, um, that we’ve had that, um. And it’s, especially right now, I was just telling you about this book, uh, Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, and it was written in 1977 by, um, Larry Mitchell. Um, and, uh, it’s been such a balm to my heart, especially with everything going on right now. And it, it also goes back to the idea that the world’s always been ending. Um,

Yes.

That there is solace and, um, with one another and with our ancestors. So those are my cloud of witnesses. Um, and then, and then like my current realities with my, my family, my chosen family, my um, my bio family, my amazing niblings. Mm-hmm. They’re so smart. Um, and my two wonderful dogs, so. Mm-hmm. Um, those are my people. That’s where I come from. That’s why I’m still here.

Mm. We are so grateful that you are still here. And I just wanna say thank you so, so, so, so muchas gracias. I have wanted you on, like I had said, I wanted you on an episode Teología Sin Vergüenza forever. We finally made it happen. I’m so grateful for your time and for your light and your love. Thank you for being you in the world and thank you for spending some time with us.

Thank you so much. It was such a joy to be here, and it’s always a joy to talk to you friends, so thanks for having me.

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or Teología Sin Vergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are las sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure.

Welcome to this episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today we have Dr. Norma Ramirez, who is a psychologist in Nevada and California, and whose practice is dedicated to serving undocumented immigrants, first gen professionals, neurodivergent folk, and the L-G-B-T-Q community. As an immigrant herself, Dr. Ramirez is a passionate advocate who was a plaintiff against DACA’s 2017 Recension, and whose leadership in the Latinx community was publicly recognized by the Biden and Harris administration. Her professional approach is deeply influenced by her own marginalized identities, spirituality, work, and activism. And she graduated from divinity school. Stay tuned. Hola, hola, hi!

Hi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza. I am so thrilled for our time together. We are new friends, but like an instant kind of connection of what I’m talking about with Soulforce and what you’re doing with your healing work. So I just feel like this is a wonderful, why not just put it publicly out in the world, having conversations, as, as new friends. So welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza.

Thank you so much. I’m legitimately so excited to be here.

I am too. And we’re gonna start, as we always do, with a question of, do you identify as Sinvergüenza, why or why not? And again, for our audience who might not have access to Spanish, will you tell us what sinvergüenza means to you? If you have any experience with that word, growing up, and family or culture? Just help us understand what your take on sinvergüenza is and how you identify connected to it.

Yeah, I mean, I think instinctive- instinctively, I wanna say yes. I. I, I have, you know, these vague memories of being called that, like que no tienes vergüenza as a child and stuff like that, coming from my perspective of now being a psychologist, you know, thinking about how that translates to, mostly related to shame, but I think colloquially how we understand it, it’s a bit of shame and guilt, which in Spanish guilt would probably translate to, to culpa. But they’re kind of intertwined. You know, we, we try to sort of separate them and identify it as, so for example, guilt would be, I have done something bad, versus shame is, I am bad. I just think though, in, in real life, the way that they play out, they tend to be pretty intertwined. And so I think it’s a version of those. I don’t recall, I don’t have very clear memories, if any, of feeling, oh, I’m ashamed or feel guilty about who I am. What does come to mind though is, is the context like of who I am and my own history. And so when I was five years old, so I was born in Mexico, and when I was five years old mm-hmm. I came to the United States and, and even at five years old, I could have a sense of, oh, this is different. People don’t want me here. Mm-hmm. You know, you, you hear that from the people around you. In terms of, for protection, don’t let anybody, anyone know about your status, to broader, you know, on the news or TV or whatever. There’s TV shows, you know, that make fun of or make comments or this or that of people who are undocumented and those kinds of things. And so I think that has been, maybe the thing that sort of pops out more comes to the surface for me or has been more integral to what I have had to sort of overcome in that sense of feeling shame or guilt. Yes, because it’s both. There’s shame of who you are. ’cause not all immigrants get treated the same. So there’s that shame of because of your skin color, because of where you come from. This is wrong. And then there’s the guilt of, you’ve broken the law, there’s something that you’ve done that’s wrong and that you have to atone for, which never comes. Mm-hmm. And so that has been what I’ve had to deal with that, that’s been my life.

Well, it just feels, I’m hearing you talk about a political reality and I keep hearing these Christian parallels in my mind. So it’s like the difference between shame and guilt. I’m thinking about love the sinner hate the sin where it’s like we are told, a lot of us are told like, well, I love you as a Queer person because I’m supposed to love everybody, but I hate the sin of you behaving in any way, shape or form that lives into the truth of who you are. Yeah. And how my experience with LGBT people is, none of us can ever feel the difference between loving us and hating everything about our lives. Like it just feels the same. It all feels like hate. And that’s, so, it’s like a, a split that can’t really be made. And I think the same thing when I’m listening to you talk about the shame of this sense of, of you’ve done something wrong and it reminds me of this original sin. Mm-hmm. Because at five you’re pretty damn close to original sin kind of time. Of like, mm-hmm, what did that 5-year-old do that they need to like get on their knees and beg Jesus Christ to be, to come and, and cleanse their heart or whatever. Like I got saved when I was like five or six. I remember the like cartoon of the five fingers of the prayer of confession that I am bad and I deserve to go to hell. And it’s only through the grace of God. And it feels parallel to like only by the grace of the President who grants amnesty or like those kind of narratives that we start off at a negative. Or a like deficit that then we have to somehow make up or earn or submit to in order to get a gift of grace that we don’t deserve. And, and so I just am hearing all those, those stories and narratives in Bible verses ringing in my head. Yeah. In a similar kind of, no. Like, you as a 5-year-old coming here to the US has absolutely nothing to feel shame about in terms of like you as a 5-year-old breaking the law and, and that mingling between you know, you broke a rule that said this is a line that is a boundary and you’re not allowed to cross it, you know, on the hip of another adult who was bringing you here. And the same thing about we are sinful because some woman way thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago was more, was interested in learning the, the truth of good and evil. And they like, it’s like, that kind of mm-hmm nonsensical logic that’s, that makes us worthy of hell and makes undocumented folks criminals. Like it all feels like it’s mushed up together. So in addition to being a doctor of psychology, you also have had theological education. So I’m, I’m like, what? Where are the intersections? Do you see those things too?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Is that just in my head?

I mean, no, as you talk about it, absolutely. Even in the, in the way that I talked about it, like this feeling of having to atone for your sins, breaking the law, whatever. Yeah. And, and to some of your points where you’re talking about the parallels of hate, the sin, not the sinner. It was, for me when I was, it was around high school when the first Dream Act started to become more popular. And there were students that were walking out of classrooms and stuff like that. It was like that parallel of, well, I care about you, but politically this is not okay. You know? And so it, it’s that, yeah, that, that, that’s not, that is not accepting or loving in any way. In, in that sense. It’s, oh, that reinforced that I’m not safe, that I’m not wanted, right? That, that I have to continue striving for some kind of approval. And so in terms of the theological pieces, like absolutely. Because there’s this false narrative of, you were a child, so it’s not your fault, but there’s fault for someone and they place it on our hands.

Right, there’s an adult behind it. Yes. Mm-hmm. Which is also your family.

It’s our family. But it’s also not true. Like theologically, our parents get sacrificed. Like Jesus. Yes. They get sacrificed for our sense. Mm. I don’t know at this point. I don’t know if there’s any theological grounding behind this, but to think of the border though, like that is something that we made up, right? It, it’s not real. And so this idea that you’re breaking a law and that this law that, it’s just the way it is because we so called it to be now has these consequences where I would say that people, especially you see it now, that they would say that we are deserving of hell because of Mm. Wanting a better life. Mm-hmm. And mm-hmm. The piece that’s not get talked about, which is that, how the United States, since its inception. Yeah, it is a violent history. Continuously. Yes, it’s a violent history, and then it goes out, creates more violence, destabilizes these governments, and so people have to figure out how to survive and so what are they gonna do? Yeah, they’re gonna do everything they can. To survive.

Absolutely. And also that is even mentioning the border that moves. I love those, those statements that, we didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us. Like, and I think that is so relevant because it points to how arbitrary, I mean I think the similar things are true of Christianity, of there are some very fundamental life rules that are really great. Don’t hurt other people. Mm-hmm. You know, be kind to the stranger, feed the hungry. Those kinds of rules make all the sense in the world. But then there’s this whole, just like, encyclopedia level of other things that you’re not supposed to do. That’s, well, originally, you know. This kind of homosexual sex was an abomination, and eating shrimp was an abomination, and wearing mixed fabrics was an abomination and all those things were bad. And then at some point we decided, well, we all like camarones so we’re going to eat the shrimp and it’s okay to have, you know, flexible fabrics, so that we can have both rayon and cotton so they can breathe and be elastic. And, but then we kept this one about this homosexuality thing that wasn’t even about like, loving relationships. It was about a form of, of being like those on the other side of the border. There’s just so many of those things that I feel like people hold as law. Mm-hmm. That is, as moral law, when in reality it totally is dependent on the powers that be at any given moment. And that is true both politically and that is also true religiously.

We’re gonna get into this idea of like free will and whether free will exists or not.

Oh, okay. Yes, let’s go.

But I think as human beings in this western context. We have this very deep pride of, you know, I’m independent and everything that I think and I do comes from me, and no one controls me. No one influences me. This is all me. Yes. When in reality, we are so, so, so deeply shaped by our context, our history, who’s around us. You know, we are so deeply influenced by color. That’s why we have this big marketing conglomerate of people trying to influence us. ’cause it works. We are so easily influenced. Yes. And um, yes. And so that, that’s,

Some of us are more aware that than others. Yes. I mean like, yes. Well, before I had a kid I was like, I’m stoic. It’s fine, whatever. I had a kid, this is a, you know, a decade and a half ago now, and now I’m like, cry at commercials. I’m like, it’s McDonald’s or it’s Coca-Cola. Like I don’t approve of these companies, but they show pictures of like, kids and people helping each other. I’ve watched the Dodo. I’m just like, with all the little animals, where they tell, like, stories of shelter animals or, or whatever. I’m aware of that, and therefore I have to be really careful actually with what I take in. Because I can feel my whole being like, I worked hard at unlearning apathy because when I first started working after college, I was working with, recently arrived mostly undocumented immigrants and because we were doing direct services, life or death, every day, all day long, 10 hours a day for things like food and shelter and the police and all of those things. Over time to be able to do that for so long, I built up this really thick layer so that I could hear even the hardest stories.

Yeah.

But still be like, okay, how do we get to social services? Where, how do we get through to police so that this person who’s experienced this domestic violence won’t get deported? Also, like it was just a logistics mind and I had to do some really intense work around peeling back so that I could reconnect with the layers of what feels like to me humanity. Mm-hmm. Which required effort because there is just all of this information that comes that, that I learned later terms like secondary trauma. And I wonder about you who have your own lived experience, but also are like a community level therapist. Will you talk a little bit about, what is your experience? How has that been for you, who both have your own story and are receiving our siblings and our community members who are going through some of the hardest moments of their life often when they come to you?

Yeah. It’s a whole process. Yeah. But I think now where I’m at, I think the way that I would describe it is that. I learned, so my school, the, the school that I went to, they actually did a really great job in, in the psychology aspect of it and the formation of me becoming a, a psychologist, a clinician. And so I will give them their credit.

Yes.

However, it it, it was also in, in the sense of our best interest. What, a message that we constantly received, was that we needed to learn how to sort of separate the work from our lives, from, from ourselves. And I get where that

Like compartmentalization?

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

And so I understand it in the sense of it’s, it’s this idea of sort of not wanting things to spill over and for you to be okay and, and to have some kind of safety in the work that you’re doing. I, I understand the thought. However, what I have come to learn through my own lived experience of I know what this is like, I know what this is touching. Um, I relate to the idea that you talked about of becoming sort of hardened. But to me mm-hmm. I felt like that process started way younger. You know, where I actually felt like I had the heart of stone and then God needed to create that into a heart of flesh. And so I’m in this process as this is happening, and, and in order to do the work, I think, we do need a beating heart. We do need a heart that feels.

Yes, yes.

And so that’s what I have now. These last decade or so, have been unlearning that, and learning how to feel. Yeah. And then learning how to process and encounter and listen to then, what I find when I feel. Yes, because that’s what we’re trying to avoid and right. And so I’ve been learning to befriend what I have felt as like a black hole, like it’s created from the rejection, from the hatred, from the violence, from the instability, and learning to befriend those pieces and those emotions that come. That process, I think now I’m at a better footing. You, you, you have caught me at a better time in my life. Yeah. Where I can feel it, I can cry, I can do whatever I have to do and process it and let it go and feel all the other emotions too. The joy, the love. Yeah. The whatever. And that feels a lot more grounding to me in the middle of all the chaos.

Yeah. What recommendations do you have? You’ve already named some of them. I think like therapy and giving things time so that they can be processed and digested. Any other thoughts of those folks of us who are on the front lines talking to people and listening to people’s stories and trying to support in whatever the aspect of the work is that we do and what and how we hold onto our humanity. Mm-hmm. How we hold onto that heart of flesh that you’re talking about, like what are thoughts or recommendations around that? Because it feels like we are all, well, I don’t, I can’t speak for everyone, but I hear a lot of folks talking about trying to hold onto our humanity in this moment. Mm-hmm. Where it feels like we are being barraged intentionally to make us not human anymore. To not be able to understand basic humanity. As a thing

I, I think there’s a couple of things that I think they’re all connected and so I think there’s different starting points, maybe. Potentially one could be recognizing that you do have the capacity to face and to feel whatever is coming up. Because I think that’s what makes the emotions or, or sitting with the emotions, recognizing them so, so scary is because we don’t have good models of how to do that. And so then we’re like, oh, well, I, I can’t do that. I don’t have the capacity to do it. And so, first step is recognizing that, that you are, you are bigger and capable to sit with and engage with these emotions and listen to them.

Yes. Speak a word. Yes. Speak a word of life over our people. We are capable. Okay. Amazing.

The other one is our society. Again, this western society, very much benefits from our own self-deprecation. If I think I’m not worthy, then I don’t matter, that whatever. Then I can find other ways to buy that worthiness. So yes, you matter. Whoever, wherever you are, you matter. Yes. And. So then when you connect those two, if you matter and you’re capable, then hmm. You deserve to pay attention to yourself, to take care of yourself, to listen to yourself.

Hmm. Yes. That feels like the work that we do when we talk about healing, healing, generational trauma, recognizing, yes, I have a lot of agency maybe compared to others or maybe compared to a different point in my life, like childhood. And we want people to use every bit of agency that they have and and make that muscle strong and self-determination and all of those things. Free will, like you said. And that we come from a place, we come from a people, and especially those of us who are immigrants, who are first and second gen. We carry also all of that from displacement, whether it’s chosen, whether it’s economically forced, whether it’s through trafficking, whether, whatever it is we carry with us that experience. Along with experiences that go all the way back to colonization and before, both the strategies of resilience, and finding places in our bodies, and making ways out of no ways, and the heavy and the hurt and the hard and the. You know, strands of trauma that are replayed again and again when we have these experiences over again. So I’m like, that totally comes back to that individualism of yes, you are an individual, and also, you are, an interdependent being in a vast ecosystem of beings.

And so here’s a little bit of a nugget that I think might help is that. It’s bidirectional. So in the same way that we are individuals, we are also a part of, and so we tend to do to others what has been done to us and we tend to do to ourselves what has been done to us. And so you know that at some point you start off nice listening to yourself, and here I am, but at some point you’re going to get to Oh wow. I can hurt people. Mm. What does that mean? Unintentionally!Most of the time it’s unintentional. Yeah. So what do I do when I intentionally hurt the people that I love?

And a lot of times we, well, I don’t know, maybe I’m just telling on myself and others, but there is all of this shame and guilt that comes from recognizing that I’ve hurt somebody, that I love in particular. And I would fight and die for these people, and yet, like my daughter, and yet there are times where I cause pain and it is a lot of work to step out of that. Like self-deprecation, self-focus. Like, I’m the worst, I can’t believe whatever, whatever. Mm-hmm. And actually like connect with a person that I hurt, and apologize, and come forward, come clean about it and ask for forgiveness. At little things. Not only just huge awful things, but mostly like the daily little things. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But man, for me at least, that’s been a whole practice to not just melt in shame.

Because again, we’re, we’re told that we, if, we have to be perfect in order to be deserving. But once you can really connect with nothing, absolutely nothing can take away how much worth you have, inherent worth, just because you exist. Mm-hmm. Then that’s not a problem. Yeah. You’re like, oh yeah, I messed up. I’m so sorry. How can I do this better? But if you’re stuck on I messed up and therefore I’m a horrible person, therefore I don’t matter anymore, therefore, and you know, you keep going, then, then we never get out. Yep. And we keep, then, doing the same things.

And we are isolated, which is the other part of being like, and I think that when I hear folks share stories around being undocumented, it’s the isolation also that’s like, you’re in it alone or with your specific family group, but like when you’re at school, you’re in it alone. When you’re on your own, you’re in it alone. And. That aloneness I think is so parallel. Dr. Ali Benitez talks a lot about the parallels between being undocumented and being LGBT. And I think there’s just so much there that’s like that same thing, that’s we are taught that we need to self isolate, and we need to carry shame about things that are totally unchangeable and mostly uncontrollable. And that work that you’re talking about is also the reaching out and the reaching across to be like, I, I am worthy of existing and therefore have a responsibility to other people and beings who exist to, to be honest and morally integral.

As you’re talking that makes me think of, so, when we cannot acknowledge that we have the capacity to also cause harm, to participate in practices that cause harm. And in order to defend against that, we sort of have to do a one up. Mm. Because of whatever, whatever I’m, I’m a little bit, just more than you, better than you, whatever. Mm-hmm. When we keep doing that to each other, we keep replicating the same system that is doing that to us. Yeah. When people talk about, well, what can we do to, you know, change it, change the system, or help these communities or whatever. Well, that means that the person that’s doing the one up, you have to take the risk to make mistakes. Mm. You have to take the risk that when you encounter and meet someone who’s being detained or whatever, that you’re gonna mess it up. And just because you mess it up, it doesn’t mean that suddenly you’re like, I’m done. I’m, I tried. It didn’t work. I’m gonna go somewhere else. It means that you are like, I messed up. How can I do this better? How can I try again and keep going? Yes. Acknowledging those pieces that come along with it.

Mm. Wow. Yeah. That’s powerful. I wonder if you have thought about. Well, we’ve talked a little bit about in past conversations around this moment of uncertainty. Mm-hmm. And so I feel like we’ve talked a little bit about this and I would love our audience to hear about it. This time in particular feels so uncertain. And I’m wondering how you’re feeling these days around that uncertainty, how that is showing up for you and what you are doing in response to that uncertainty, how you accompany others who are in that same moment of uncertainty. Based in response of the spiritual and physical terrorism that’s happening to our community right now where people are being kidnapped off the streets. And I know there are so many people in the community, and adjacent to the community, who are feeling so panicked and so fearful, and you’re a healer by trade and also you’re part of our, our communities. Because of just who you are and where you are in the world. And so will you talk to us a little bit about that, that whole thing and whatever feels alive for you right now.

Part of what we’ve been talking about is that I am gonna feel the terror.

Yeah.

I do. I, I feel the terror. Not to sound redundant, but it is, it’s terrifying. You feel it. Again, me practicing what I said, of even with that terror, I am capable. To feel it. Mm. And yes, and I will cry. I will take my time to cry to, to walk, to write poetry, to connect with friends, talk about it, you know, people that are able to see it and name it with me. So all of those things, and recognizing what that means. It can happen to me. Do I wanna go through it? Absolutely not. But, wrong time or place, whatever that means, it can happen. There, there, there is no way to predict. So all of that. In terms of, you know, the people that I serve, that I work with, it’s there. We talk about it again based on the person’s capacity because what I’m talking about, you know, it’s heavy, it’s heavy stuff like,

Yes.

And, and people are at different places in their, in their journey. And so based on where they’re at, we talk about these things, naming them. Again, doing the process that I know how to do personally ’cause I’ve done it and what I know scientifically. All of that is bringing all of that together and making sure always that I never validate or reinforce the violence that is being thrown upon us. Oof. I, I am always try trying to name it like this is violent. It’s not, okay. Yes, we’re experiencing it. Yes, but it doesn’t make it okay. Yes.

I think it is true that sometimes I hear people give narratives. I mean, this is terrible, but I was at church on Sunday at a new church and somebody was talking about talking to conservative Latino pastors. I think she was visiting South Dakota and she was saying that. Their narrative was like, this is what has to happen for Jesus to come back. This is part of the apocalypse. This is part of wow. And so there were those narratives. I’ve also heard people’s narratives of, well, everything happens for a reason. This is God’s timing. And you know, maybe we did do something bad to deserve this. And those kinds of theological narratives. Come from the church, come from pastors, come from people who are supposed to be in charge of caring for our souls and our spiritual wellbeing, and it totally makes political structures invisible and it attaches to God things that should never be attached to a God that we would spend our life serving or trying to emulate. Like I wonder, have you heard any of those kinds of narratives or how would you respond to folks if you did hear those kinds of narratives? What do you do with those? In those moments where people are trying to make sense of things, but with theology that is just, I mean, it just rips my soul out to, to imagine. Yeah. Assigning that to God.

I mean, they do come up. They come up in, in different ways. And just the point too, what you said though, that it makes political structures invisible and more powerful because then you don’t get to go against them directly. And so that’s part of the work is, okay, where are these messages coming from? How did you learn or, or where did you hear that? And talking about a grounding. So in, in the instability of my life and all the things that have happened, and, and this actually, I ran into it today on Instagram, there’s this video of Tony Morrison where I think she gets asked, what does it mean to belong? She talks about how. I hope I’m not making, I’m not making it a disservice, but it’s something along the lines of recognizing that maybe not belonging to one place only or, or belonging to several different places. Actually talks about how free you are and coming home to yourself, so that way you are always home wherever you are. Something along those lines. Part of creating yourself, your home is getting to know yourself and getting to check in with yourself, and so I am constantly prompting my clients to check in with yourself. Okay, so you heard this. Horrible message or, or maybe I wouldn’t even name it at that point as a horrible message. Yeah. But yet you heard this message. Mm-hmm. What does that do to you? How does it land with you? What does it make you think? Yes. What does it make you do? Would a loving God send this message that is hurting you? Does that make sense? Yes. Or I do describe a lot of the different bio psychosocial factors. So like the mm-hmm. Like how you were raised up with, like, your family, what did they teach you, and then your church and then your schools and stuff like that. Because that’s where all of these messages are coming from. And so, yes, that message, what was the function for that in your life? Oh, well, it was to try to get me to do whatever they wanted me to do. It was trying to get me to follow this and that. And so that’s how we start checking in on that. And then, ’cause I don’t decide anything for them. If the question, again, checking in with yourself, is that something that you are okay with? Do you want to follow that and then they decide? Yes. And most of the time, you know, they don’t.

And there’s this freedom to have a choice at some point to be able to revisit what you’ve been given and do that sorting of, yes, I wanna keep this. No, I don’t wanna keep that. I think that’s such an important part of, of growing up, of being mature both spiritually and like in terms of your consciousness. But most of us are never permitted that. So the fact that, I mean, yet another tick of why therapy is helpful and so important is because it literally just creates space to recognize, oh, I’m not that person who was a child or who was in that church, or whatever. I’m my own person now and responsible because that’s what happens with sin. We are individually culpable. Mm-hmm. God gets the credit for good. We get the credit for bad and, and there’s no questions, you can’t ask, you can’t submit the recommendation box of how it could be improved. Yeah. So you’re giving folks so much freedom and space to think and feel for themselves. I’m gonna shift us a little bit because I wanna go all the way back to the beginning When you were talk, when I was asking you about your relationship with sinvergüenza and shame and all that stuff, you were talking about documentation status as a thing that you carried shame or guilt around, and I’m like, oh, that’s fascinating because most people that I talk to, their first, their first responses are around gender or sexuality. Mm-hmm. And when you and I have talked before, you’re like, eh. And so I’m like, tell me about that, that, tell me about those, like those experiences with gender and sexuality and how was that different or what was your experience with that? That was not the like crushing shame.

I started feeling more like this, calling toward God when I was like, around 15 years old and, and, and yeah, it’s going to be conservative, obviously, you know, anything that was related to queerness, homosexuality, whatever. It wasn’t good. It was bad. And so I did have those messages and. There was some kind of wondering, you know, there’s people that say that ever since they were young, they knew that they were Queer in some way. I didn’t, I’ve never really felt very attached to labels. What does it feel to be a man? I don’t know. What does it feel to be a woman? I don’t know. I know what it’s like to feel like me,

Me!

You know? So, yeah, and, and so, I don’t know. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but. Yes. Even in thinking about that, of gender norms and expectations, and you are this or that, that is something that I specifically really struggled with as a child once I had a say in what I could wear. Yes, I never liked the texture of clothing, or it felt too tight, or I couldn’t move, like I’m uncomfortable. So to me, I was like, I don’t like it simply because of how it feels and, and so then I just don’t fit the gender expectation of being a woman. So, so I think in that sense, I’ve always been in very in between and sort of blurred spaces and, and you could just kind of see that repeatedly in my life in all these different areas. So when it came to. Thinking about it, I don’t think I had, like, a good clear of, am I this or am I that? And then it wasn’t until I was in graduate school at a seminary where I was, like, really more coming to terms of, okay, maybe there is something that’s been happening. And so that’s where, yeah, I just had my first relationship with a woman and it also so happened that I was at a place where other people were also exploring that for themselves. Or they were just accepting of, of that, that that was just not an issue. And so I never, I never came out to anyone uhhuh. It was just like, Hey, if you’re my friend, this is who I’m dating. I think, so maybe, the only person that I came out to was like my mom just to let her know. ‘Cause she would keep asking me like, ’cause it wasn’t just who’s wanting to date you, but it was something like. What man or what guy, whatever is wanting to date you. And I had to be like, it’s not a man, mom.

How’d that go?

It was interesting ’cause there were other family things involved in that conversation. Mm-hmm. But honestly, at one point I just told her, I’m like, this is not gonna change. This is not a phase. So, you know, that’s up to you. And then after that it was just, it’s not an issue.

Maybe mamas know their kids sometimes, and so it wasn’t that that shocking. But it is interesting. I love this orientation of, it’s true. I, I feel a little bit that way about Jesus, where I’m like, do I love Jesus? I don’t know. Do I know Jesus? No. I have no idea. What I know is the Holy Spirit, and that’s what makes my Christianity what it is, is because I’m like, the spirit makes sense. I can feel them, I can hear them, but Jesus was this, like, historical person at a particular place in time. Mm-hmm. So even if Jesus is one of my ancestors, and I claim that. It feels so much more hard to quantify that kind of personal direct relationship. Whereas spirit’s just always been with me. I just feel like from, from birth, from childhood. So I love this orientation of, I don’t know what a man feels like, because we always get accused of, you wanna be a man or you wanna be a woman, or whatever. It’s, I don’t know what that feels like. I know what I feel like. And then, you know, some of us have different desires around how we present and how we wanna be addressed. Mm-hmm. And pronouns and all of those things, which is about, again, how we feel. In our own beings about who we are. And I kind of love this. You and I had talked before and you were like, I just did my own thing. I liked what I liked because I liked that thing and I was that thing and, and so I think there’s something so beautiful about being like, not leaving your frame to jump into somebody else’s frame of goodness or expectations, but rather I am me. And I am a good version of me in my frame, because that’s what I know. So I love that. I love that orientation.

Yeah. And you know, something you said right now about being good because, you know, in, in, in these conservative narratives, the idea that like if you’re not with God, you know, you’ll suffer some kind of punishment because of sin or whatever. Mm-hmm. And during that time, like I said, I was in graduate school and for someone who’s undocumented to be in a doctoral program to, you know, like funding is the very first block. Yes. There’s no way like that is Yes. There’s less than 1% of us in, in graduate school and make it through. So to them, to the people that knew me, God was with me. Yes. ’cause how else could this have happened? Yes. And so I think to some degree it’s, well, is God with you or not? And you know, like now that we know that

You’re confusing people!

You’re with the woman. And so to some degree it was like nothing horrible is happening in my life. And so, I don’t know, I wonder if something about that was just kind of like, okay, whatever. You know.

Yes, I love that too. I, whenever I spend time with fundamentalists or people who are super anti LGBT and claim that it’s about their faith, I authentically and truthfully say like they say to us, I’m like, I will pray for you and I am really explicit that I’m going to be praying that there are enough LGBT people that come into your life that God will help you see. And have a change of heart of who we are and how much God loves us, and I always feel so heartened when. Particularly religious fundamentalist people are so confused because they’re like, you sound like a Christian and you have a whole faith practice. And now that I’m ordained, it’s a whole other layer of, this doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense. And that making sense and not making sense at the same time is really confusing because I can remember from my own fundamentalist evangelical days that I really did think that gay people mm-hmm had like horns growing outta their head. They were all like, you know, pedophiles, and criminals, and drunks and like all these terrible stereotypes. And I feel like so many people, if you can hold onto the hate, you have to kind of hold onto those stereotypes. And then when you meet somebody who holds both of them together and like you’re saying, like being, having this miraculous possibility. Which, we wanna celebrate the hell out of that because congratulations and you got through it, doctor, and that that is amazing and that is incredible. And all signs would point to not only is God with you, but you are amazing and brilliant in your own like trajectory for your work. But that is confusing. That makes sense. That is that, that would be confusing to folks. Absolutely. Why did you choose to go to seminary of all of the paths? Why was it seminary?

Yeah. Well, you know, so I was an undergrad and I was doing my undergrad in psychology. There were a couple of cl uh, classes that I took where literally the first day, first thing that came out of their mouth was. This is a class based on science. There’s no, you know, don’t come with your God theology, whatever point. And so to me, at that point, you know, I, I was trying to study the Bible and reading and stuff like that, and. That didn’t make sense to me because there were things that I was reading, and obviously, I mean, think about it, psychology, human behavior. How is it not totally going to be in the Bible? There’s plenty there. Yeah. But people are surprised by that. And so I was reading it and I was like, this is telling me about human behavior. Just look at Proverbs or like the wisdom books and stuff like that. That’s really easier. And so I wanted to go to a place where there could be integration of both the psychology aspect of it and the faith piece of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I got a good piece of the faith piece of it because, well, the degree, actually, that I went into was not the degree that I thought I was going into. So it, it was titled, or it’s titled, a Master’s in Intercultural Studies. So I thought, Hey, this is great. Okay, I wanna be a psychologist and this is gonna help me understand different cultures. You know, it turns out that the classes are set up so that you could pro- convert people of different cultures. And I was like, oh,

Oh my God. I was like, that’s like a missionary.

I didn’t know. Wow. And yeah, there were, I didn’t see any fine line or anything, you know, so, so that’s what happened.

Amazing.That’s hysterical. And totally understandable. I do wanna talk about one theological concept because I feel like we really connected on the apophatic nature of God, which is a fancy word for folks who have not been through seminary, which is about the part of God that is unknown, the mystery of God. So will you tell us a little bit about why the mystery of God is important and about that not knowing and how that connects to your life and your theology.

When I first started, or I guess when I became a Christian and when I was trying to get closer to God and those things, one of the messages that I heard was, you know, talk to God as if he was your friend, at that time.

Mm. He.

And, and I took it to heart, you know, I was like, yeah. And I would sit down and instead of the typical stereotypical prayer of, can you please do X, Y, and Z, I would tell God about my day and um, I mean, I never heard anything back. But there was a, a sensing, you know, a sensing that got built of what God feels like, the movements, the, you talked about the Holy Spirit of, of what that, that sensation, that embodiment of what that is. Mm-hmm. And during grad school, something that we haven’t mentioned is that around that time was Trump’s first presidency. And he had promised that he was gonna take the DACA program away, which gave us a work permit and like, protection from deportation. And he, he went and did what he said he was gonna do and yeah. Because of how we deem people as worthy or not worthy. Yep. Being someone who was undocumented, who was also DACA recipient at a graduate school level, I was invited to into this lawsuit. I said yes. And so. As I’m in this piece, learning how to, you know, be a psychologist, do all the things. I’m also like fighting to survive.

Wait, what was the, what was the lawsuit? Tell, tell us about this experience. This is really important.

So the lawsuit was against the Trump administration for illegally taking away the DACA program, and so that started in 2017. I started grad school in 2015. So for the next four years of my life, of grad school, that’s what it was. And we went all the way to the Supreme Court, we won.

Wow.

And then Texas was like, oh, now we know how to take the program away. And so it, the program is like every time it’s like just slowly hanging on by the tiniest of threads, but it’s hanging on, and, and I take pride in that.

Yes!

Because, yes, you know, our participation, when so many people, even now you can see, there’s very few people, one, who are willing to say no to these powers that be. And even for those that do stand up, there’s very few that can actually stop them. And so we’re one of the few that actually stopped them.

That’s amazing. Congratulations. Congratulations. I feel like that’s such an example of in the face of horror and terror, to take back some of your own humanity and personhood and be like, we will fight because we are worth fighting for. These are our lives. And you know, I was with, I was the ED of a community center when the Dream work started happening in the very, very early two thousands. And so many of those young people are now adults, have children. Are lawyers, are all kinds of amazing things that they learned by unlearning fear. Or not even not having it, but just recognizing, yes, it’s scary. I’m scared that fear is there and I’m also going to resist. I’m also gonna fight back. I’m also gonna do whatever I can. And that sounds like you just snatched your own dignity, humanity, and worth, like right back from a system of dehumanization that was trying to insist that you were less than the full human that you are.

Yeah. And, and it’s a constant process, because as obviously right now Yeah. That is the messaging and so, so all of that is going as I’m in grad school, there’s Yeah. All these questions, all these questions about. Uh, just existential questions about life and God, and, and what is happening and why am I here? And part of a, the, a piece that’s, I think, important before going to grad school, because like I said, it, it definitely was a miracle. Yes. When I learned about this school, I literally prayed. I told God, I was like, look, if you want me to go here. You are gonna have to figure, you’re gonna have to do the things to move it. I will do my part. Yes. But then you have to do the other part that I cannot do. Yes. And, And I even said something along the lines of, I will go through hell as long as you’re with me. And let me tell you!

I never play. God took you at your word. God was like noted.

Yeah. By then, there had to already been some kind of trust in relationship between me and, and God too for me to even think of saying that and, and to go forth and all that. And, and I ended up going, and so there was this piece of. I literally do not know what next, what tomorrow’s gonna look like. I don’t know if I’m gonna finish the program. I dunno if I’ll get funding. Yeah. I don’t know if, you know, someone’s gonna come after me. Because that’s what it was before. Mm-hmm. They’re taking the program away. I don’t know where I’m going to live. I just, I don’t know what’s in front of me. And that gave me a very real visceral experience of the unknown. Of uncertainty. Yes. Of literally, I cannot count on anything other than the very moment I’m in. And, and so that made me think of, of God, of we try to pin down God into some kind of theology or modality, or maybe not modality, but denomination of some kind and mm-hmm. At some point, to me it felt, well, by definition I cannot know God. God is infinite and I’m finite, and so I’m not gonna be able to take all of it in. Yes. But I can trust. Maybe like the character of God, you know, like the God I’ve gotten to know. Yes. And then from there I can kind of structure my decisions of where I’m going and what works and what doesn’t work. And, even when I don’t know the full theology of, for example, like women in the Bible or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I know that God is not going to oppress or punish or destitute women just because they’re women. Yeah. I’ve accepted that I, I won’t fully know all of God. Yeah. They will know me fully.

Yes.

And, and to somehow, sort of do this dance of then living life in this finite moment with this sort of infinite being. And so that’s kinda what it is.

Yes. That’s a beautiful vision of that dance and holding the both ands and holding the, like what we can hold onto, and then the vastness beyond that, that we cannot. And I wonder, as somebody who is both living through this moment and supporting others living through this moment. For sure there are people listening to this podcast who are in similar situations, and so as a healer, both from your mental health lens and from your theological study and experience lens, what are some words or thoughts or advice or good news or, suggestions that you have for other folks who might be hearing this and for the first time, hearing somebody putting together this moment and spiritual violence, spiritual terrorism. And this feeling of being enoughness, like all of these things around this apophatic God., I just wonder, you would be the person that I would call if somebody came to me and was like, this is the situation and even if I can’t change the external conditions, I need to get something sorted inside me. And you would be that human that I would call. So I’m curious. Knowing that there are for sure people who are listening who are in a similar situation, what is a lesson or a a word for those folks?

What comes to mind is, is, first of all, your pain is absolutely valid. The terror that you’re feeling, the anger. The even sort of like, maybe even rebelliousness of, no, I don’t wanna listen to anyone, don’t tell me that I need to heal. All of that is valid. And, and it’s telling you something. It’s, it’s screaming and yelling at you because it wants you to pay attention to it. And so. In this sort of distant ways, I, I recognize that, you know, and, and it matters. Yeah. And it is sacred. And whenever you are ready, whenever you can listen to that pain, to that anger, and you can hear, my guess is that it’s telling you how much you matter despite what everyone else is telling you. Ooh, once you can hear that and hold it. In there, there’s an invitation to come and to be held by this being who is beyond all of the things that are happening, but not just beyond. ‘Cause it’s at least my view is not that God is separate, but that they are beyond and with us in the moment. I cannot predict what’s going to happen. There’s, there’s so much that has, and that will happen. That is horrible and terrifying. Yes. But in that moment where you are still breathing, God is still holding.

Oof. Whew. I’m just gonna let that breathe for a minute. I feel like so many of us need to hear that. It’s that incredible presence that you’re talking about. The I have this moment right here and that is something. So thank you for that. And thank you for being here with us, and thank you for spending your time with us. Our last question is always, who are your ancestors? What is your fount of ancestral wisdom? Who do you think of when you need to be reminded of who you are and where you come from and you know that interconnectedness that we were talking about, who is that for you or who comes to mind? Be they blood, or cultural, or theological, psychology, wherever those come from, who are those reference points?

For a really long time, I felt very uprooted and disconnected from, from anything or anyone from my culture, right? Like I said, at five years old at that time, I. I don’t even remember what I would’ve been learning, you know? Um mm-hmm. And then traditions and stuff like that. My family didn’t grow up with traditions. And so for a long time I felt that disconnect and uprooted. This last time though, that I was able to go to Mexico, I was able to see family that I hadn’t seen since I was like, in 30 years. I saw, wow. I was able to see my grandmother a different time, but to be in the place where I was born. That changed something in me. So there’s a piece of, like a connection to a place, a connection to the people that I met. I, I reconnected with my godmother and just, that there’s, there’s a piece of that that I think has been really forming me in new ways. And then there’s the. Just historical relationship that I’ve had with God on and off throughout the years. Yes. And, and so, yeah, I think that’s sort of what I connect to. I’m, I’m careful mm-hmm. About claiming any ancestry that I, I haven’t really, I really had that experience to be raised or, or to be influenced by, um mm-hmm. But I would hope to be able to reconnect. More as the years goes on.

Yes. Amen. Amen and amen. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being you. I think there’s so much to be learned and gained, and I think folks will hear so much that resonates, and I know I’ve certainly felt that in this time. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being a Sinvergüenza with us.

Thank you so much for having me. I had so much fun.

Me too. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure.

Welcome to this episode of TSV. Today we sit down with ana, who is an organizer, minister, and the coordinator for Freedom Church of the Poor Care and Engagement. They’re rooted in Guatemala and shaped by global liberation movements of poor and dispossessed peoples. ana’s work is grounded in dismantling capitalism, white supremacy, ableism, and patriarchy, with an unwavering commitment to collective liberation. They build community through trauma-informed, intergenerational and disability justice centered praxis, organizing people to remember, reclaim, and revel in their shared power, beauty, and belonging. Welcome. Hi, beloved. Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza.

Hello. Hello. Hi.

I am so excited to have you here. I feel like your voice is missing from our Sin Vergüenza lineup. And now we are here, and we have you, and I can’t wait to get us started.

Thanks. I’m so excited. It’s, I’ve, I’ve heard about you all and now I’m here, so it’s, it’s a, a coming home. It feels good.

Yes. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. We’re gonna start where we always start, which is, do you identify as a Sinvergüenza ? Why or why not? But in the English season, we’re asking folks to tell us. What does Sinvergüenza mean to you? Do you have experience with that word? Especially because we might have folks in the audience this season who aren’t familiar with that word or what it means. So let us know a little bit about Sinvergüenzura and what your relationship is to it.

Yes, definitely consider myself as Sinvergüenza. No, I have to say, if you would’ve asked me that like even three months ago, I probably wouldn’t have said it in the same way that I’m answering. Yes, I’m as Sinvergüenza today, like, unapologetically like, yeah. Full body mind. Soul. Spirit. Yes. ‘Cause it wasn’t really until like a month ago that I really felt that I was coming through this, like, exodus of like this wilderness of my gender identity, my sexual identity, my intergenerational traumas, to really tap into this like wholeness. Into this, full body liberation acceptance and like this real commitment to life amidst death dealing systems. This commitment to liberation in my body and in my relationships with others, and really tapping into somebody that lives with chronic pain. So like from the depths of pain, choosing life. Ooh, uh, choosing myself in this body in this moment, and, you know, saying yes to love and saying yes to, uh, all types of love, but especially romantic love. Because,

Okay, wait, what happened a month ago? Because I’m like, okay, you know, everybody listening is gonna be like, wait, wait, what happened? What happened? Was there a moment or was there a breaking point or what? What happened? Because that’s amazing. We’re getting you like right at this pinnacle moment of being like, yes, yes, yes. I am me in here, and I’m so delighted to be in that moment with you, but, okay. But, what happened? Tell us what happened.

Well, to all listen and it gets even better. No, it’s just, what’s so nice about this moment is that I was taking a bath. Yes. Okay.

That’s a great start!

Because, alright, I’m taking a bath because I’m in real pain, you know? Mm. And so. It’s like, it’s a, it’s a moment of self care. Yeah. It’s a moment of being tender. Mm-hmm. Of choosing to care for my body in the way that it needed to be soft and gentle. And so it’s in this moment, in the intimacy of this body with water. Just like a safe, you know, we were born.

Yeah.

I have this moment when I say. Nope. This is the body that I have. This is who I am, and this is who I am in, in, in everything. Like ,who I am as Queer, as non-binary, as an immigrant, as a woman of color, as somebody who lives with chronic pain, like this is me. Like I have no other body, but this, I have no other life, but the one that I’ve been living in right now, in this moment. So choosing myself felt like, just like starting this, this podcast, like, a coming home. A coming to me and a coming to me from like very aware of my relationship to ancestors and to ancestors like being told, no. Or being made feel like they’re less, being made, feel small. And in this moment of me being in the bathtub, like seeing I am expansive, I am one with this water. I am one with like, you know, divine spirit.

Yes.

And so that’s, that’s what happened. And that was the moment where I also said like, I had been wondering whether I wanted to be a mom and birth and you know, Queer, there’s many complications and things to figure out. But my hesitance a lot of the time lately was more around living with chronic pain and whether I would be able to do it or not. But in that moment of choosing life and choosing myself and, and my body, I was like, I do, I do wanna be a mom. In whatever way that will come about. I, I love kids, I love intergenerational relationships. And therefore like, saying yes to, to this saying yes to love and, and to bring in life on earth amidst again, death dealing systems felt like in this moment, a radical act of love.

Absolutely.

And of choosing our people, our community. Like to, to carry on the lineages of resistance. Yeah. That move through my body and our collective efforts of liberation. So that’s what happened and that’s how, how I’m here.

Yes. It feels like so much ritual. Even like, I think that’s something that is so critical is that we always have access to ritual. We always have access to the divine. For me, ancestors live in the water. I’ve definitely had the experience where I was like going to do a talk and then like taking a shower. Like, literally getting ready for the talk and feeling the ancestors being like, that’s not the talk you’re giving today. We have other agenda items, you actually are gonna shift. And that, that happens to me in hot water in particular, where I just feel so much more connected and, and so much ritual is done with water. And so I think it’s so beautiful to hear your story of this, you know, moment with the divine. In yourself and the water, when you’re your most vulnerable. I mean, baths are like, we’re naked, we’re in water, we’re super vulnerable. And that you were having a moment of intense pain feels like, is the exclamation point in your conclusions in that prayer world and that like in-between liminal space between you and God. I just feel like, yeah, felicidades. Like, that’s good for you, like holding that. And, maybe you could tell us just a little bit about what you’re up to in the world. Because when you were talking about death dealing systems, you’re not talking abstractly about something theoretical over there, in a different country or in a different group of people. You are in the midst of that work every day, in your ministry, in your work. And so when you say the choice to choose yourself and choose our community. Mm-hmm. And choose love and life in this moment where so many people are feeling the consequences of the death dealing system is a particular one, because it’s right there with you. It’s not those other people over there. So will you tell us a little bit about your work and, and ministry in the world right now?

Yes. Would love to. So I’m an organizer.I am a minister with the Freedom Church of the Poor. And I say that if y’all could see my smile. Uh, I say that with pride. I say that with my feet deeply uh, grounded and rooted in the lineage of poor people organizing for a better world.

Yeah.

I have been working with the Kairos Center for Religions Rights and Social Justice for about five years now, and they come from this lineage of the National Union of the Homeless, the National Welfare Rights Organization. It is everyday people like you and me. Um mm-hmm. Uh. Latinas, Black, white, poor white, poor Black, poor Latinos, poor people, living under this death dealing systems. But who have resisted and who continue to resist by coming together in community, by being led by the poor and the marginalized. And so, it is from that lineage and from that reality today where we see the continued attacks to our Black, our Brown siblings who are incarcerated, who are living on the streets, who are being Medicaid- from, who are being cut from Medicaid, um mm-hmm. And, who are saying, another world is possible. You know, the current situation within the US is just about to get worse.

Yeah.

And so we’ve been traveling around the country connecting with different communities who are showing us how it is that another world is possible. How it is that we live actually in a world of abundance.

Yes, we do.

Where absolutely every need of everyone could be met if we chose to do so.

That’s right.

We in the United States throw away more food than it would take to feed not only everyone who’s hungry across the US, but everybody across the world. Yes. So therefore, there is enough.

Certainly

We, uh, released a report that talks about, right before the pandemic, that there is 140 million people who are poor or who are just one emergency away from absolute economic ruin here in the United States. That was before the pandemic. So you can only imagine that that number has gone way up. And that is, like 140 million is 43% of the US population. And so that is power that also reflects that poverty is not because of a individual’s fault, an individual’s misdoing, which is a lot of what we hear, like, oh, this is the country of dreams, the country of opportunity. This is the country that like you can pull yourself off from your boots,

your bootstraps.

Yes. Yes. Like that’s what we hear. That’s the narrative, and that is not true. Yeah. If you’re talking about 43% of the population, then we’re talking about systemic problems.

That’s right.

Uh, and so, yeah.

Well, it made me think about also this word. I’m curious what your experience is with this word poor, because I come from Appalachia and I was raised by coal miner, coal mining, coal miner’s daughter, literally. Mm-hmm. And we were poor, but we would’ve never said that out loud. Like, well one, it was also Appalachia, so when, when we were just helping each other out because it was that, whatever crop it was, whether it was peaches or strawberries or beans or whatever, we just had tons of them and we would can them and do all these things.

Yeah.

And so in that way, that’s how we got by. But I wonder. Like, part of our issue and part of the systemic injustice is that nobody thinks they’re poor. Like literally nobody. Everybody’s like, well, I’m lower middle class, or, mm-hmm. Like that’s, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about your experience with that. Or talking to folks, like this idea that you have to sell your labor for money to meet your basic needs. That that’s not just like an average middle class household. It, I just feel like that was a whole process for me that took forever. I still kind of flinch at the word poor. Mm-hmm. Uh, but I feel like that was, it’s, it was not untrue at all. And yet I had been given this narrative that, like growing up on $13,000 a year, I mean, granted it was the eighties, but still $13,000 for two people.

Yeah.

Was not enough money. And so that idea of like, we’re middle, we’re not middle class.

No we’re not.

But there was like this fictitious idea that we are all middle class at some range. What’s your experience with talking with people and you and having that be like explicitly what, what your organization is called or what the campaigns are called?

Two of my mentors Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis and Willie Baptist wrote this article about who are, who are the poor? And why are they poor? And they really invite us basically to think about if you don’t have, I was gonna say assets, that’s not the right word, but like if you don’t have money, like if you’re not in the 1%, basically.

Right.

You are poor. Like-

Which, most of us know zero people in that 1%. Exactly. Even the richest person, you know, who maybe has like a beach house or whatever, like your parents friends cou- like even that’s not even who we’re talking about, right? Like that’s not even the 1%.

That’s right. That’s right. So if we’re able to then understand that-

Yeah.

Then it’s like, oh snap, it’s all of us. And that we’re a part of this like economic system. Like that can be different. Like capitalism hasn’t been around forever. Mm-hmm. It’s a new development, therefore, like we can think about something different than the current way of, uh, of living and of relating with, with Mother Earth. And so. There is such, such shame and I’m choosing shame because you know, we’re talking about being in sinvergüenza and so it’s like resisting to the shame of calling ourselves poor. It’s so needed to be able to say like, there is no shame in me being poor. I am poor because of this system. There’s no relation to, you know, spiritualizing like poor in spirit or whatever. Like, no, none of that. Like it’s actually economic conditions, material reality of people. Yes. Like God, like Jesus was a poor man. Jesus was a homeless man. And so Jesus was organizing amongst the poor and marginalized, and was aware of the economic, societal conditions of his time, and was against those realities and was organizing for all of us to experience Jubilee, which is like-

Amen.

every need met because we know that God created abundance. And so there is definitely like everywhere we go or like in, we get emails about like, Hmm, maybe you shouldn’t use the word poor. Like maybe you should use something else. And I’m like, no, that is exactly why we’re using it. Yeah, why we have to. And so, that is like the lineage of, of the organization and the work that we’re doing to really bring together those 140 million people in the US, but also building bridges of solidarity internationally for all the ways that people are, are made poor. People are not born poor, people are made poor by the systems we live under. And so it’s a, it’s a commitment to knowing that that another world is possible and that there is enough for everyone.

I love that. And I was gonna ask you as a minister, what’s the connection to, and you totally just read, my mind went there and was like, absolutely this is, this is directly in line with Jesus. This isn’t even adjacent. This is like part of the gospel. And one of the things when we have talked before that you said is like, God is not neutral and God does not want us to be poor. God does not want us to be limited. God wants you said, God is not neutral. God wants me to live fully. Mm-hmm. And the idea that that is even possible, I think is something that is hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. And then you have statistics that show us like, actually there is enough. It is about human will and human greed on the other side that that doesn’t happen. So I just feel so grateful that you’re like connecting those through lines because they’re absolutely connected. And I wonder if. I ask you before, and I’ll ask you again now, how did you get to be this badass organizer? Where did you come from? Who did you come from? Because I just feel like it feels like you’ve been doing this your whole life. And you are like, I kind of have! And so I would love for you to tell us a little bit like what is, what, especially when we’re thinking about the, the bridging back to the places that we come from and home. Mm-hmm. Um, and the lineages of resistance. I think there’s so much that we in the US can learn from those of us who come from other places and what those struggles were and what those histories are that were often not told. So will you tell us a little bit about your connection?

Yes, for sure. I was not created in a vacuum, you know? Mm-hmm. I am a part of, of a history of, of resistance. Of a history of, I, I’ll say resistance, and I, and I’ll uh, talk about my mother. I know later on you’re, we always, uh, the sinvergüenzas, always talk about what is our lineage? Who, who forms us? And I’m thinking about my mother. Um mm-hmm. I’m thinking about my, my grandparents, but I’m thinking about my mother specifically. Because she is the daughter of, she has five brothers and it’s only her as the only girl. And you know, she lived in a very chauvinist household. Very machista household. Um, oh, and for, I haven’t said that i’m originally from Guatemala, uh, from Antigua. If parenthesis, if you haven’t been there, you definitely should. ’cause it’s absolutely gorgeous. Um,

Yes, you should.

So I was born in Antigua. I was born in Antigua in 1991. That is just five years before we signed the peace agreements after 36 years of Civil War. So, I’m five years old when we signed the peace agreements. But before I’m even born, I was bringing up my mother because my mother said if she ever has a daughter, she doesn’t want her to have the same life that she had. Where she had to serve her siblings, where she had to literally have less food because the men needed to have enough food for themselves. Where, when she was finishing high school, or middle school, I guess in, in Guatemala, she was trying to decide what she was gonna study and she decided what is known as home economics. Like, mm-hmm. You know, that can be seen as a very traditional like women role. Yeah. But she chose it because it was the one career that you have to travel to the city to study. Mm. And she wanted to leave her town. She wanted to see more. Yeah. And so she chose that because it got her out. Yes. And so this is, uh, a fierce woman, a sinvergüenza through and through, uh, that then said, if I have a daughter, I want her to not have to go through the same circumstances. And so she has a, a, a son, my brother, who is five years older than me. And this is somebody who then loves to cook, loves to sew, loves to do, then, all the like female, uh, roles of society.

Yeah.

And then there’s me who, for the life of me, I can took to survive. But like, sadly, I have not yet learned the lessons of the, the, the cooking recipes from my family. But I’m coming through this like, lineage of resistance. Of like immediate lineage with my mother. But, I talked about the 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, and I talk about, therefore, a culture and a society filled with fear, filled with the trauma of war, of genocide, of erasure, um,

mm-hmm.

annihilation of, of bodies, of culture, of language. And so, I’m raised in that, in that culture, uh, with that awareness. And I come to, you know, I end up having, we end up having to leave Guatemala when I am 14, just a couple of months before my quinceanera. And I arrive in, out of all places, Louisville, Kentucky, uh.

Welcome to the South.

Yes, just like, uh, a week before starting high school. I come into a, a, a church here that like is committed to justice, is connected to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which are amazing organizers in Immokalee, Florida who are organizing for, fair wages, and for dignity in the fields. And so that’s how I like, I, I come into, into organizing, into community building, like with them. And you know, I organized through my high school years. Then, I organized through my college years in Asheville, North Carolina, where-

That’s where I’m from.

Yay. So we have connections to, to land, um mm-hmm, and to region in this country where you know, there’s a lot of hurt. There’s a lot of racism.

Yep.

And, but there’s a lot of resistance. Like on campus we were organizing. So that the, the few people of color who were there could, didn’t have to drop out, but could continue in their studies and could, could finish their studies. ‘Cause many of them were first generation students. And so, there’s, yeah, there’s all of this lineage of like, of resistance, of building the world that we so desperately need in the every day. In, in the ways that we relate to one another, in the ways that we share our resources. That then, due to hurt and racism, I end up leaving the US. I end up going back to Guatemala, but I end up like, coming together with other young people in a time of resisting and, and, and organizing in Guatemala to remove our president in 2015. That, uh, really taught me, like ,the need for us to come together, meet each other’s material needs, and organize to create societal change, change to meet the needs of our community. And so we were organizing like healthcare clinics and dental care work and with, uh, like young people, uh, coming into different towns, connecting artists and organizers and reclaiming the streets and the local parks to, uh, to say this is, these are our streets. This is our space.

Yes.

And together we can make sure that elected officials, you know, like, do the things that they promise every time that they are running for office. That we ourselves will put in the pressure and just as we get them to, to do what they say they will do, we will meet, uh, the needs of our community. And so, that is a lot of what, uh, has grounded my work. So we are doing this organizing of our material needs, organizing our communities to, to respond and to connect and to organize themselves. And to scale, I guess, the organizing. Mm-hmm. Because in some ways, like people were already caring for each other. But we’re politicizing the way that they’re caring for each other and why they’re having to step in themselves in the ways that they’re caring for each other. And what is the role then of, of, of government, of the society to share the abundance of the world with their people. And so that’s a little bit of like my politicizing that is happening in Guatemala. But this is all happening in, in a time and in a body. In my body, when I am also wrestling with heartbreak. Where I’m also wrestling with mental health issues. And so there comes a moment where I break. And I break with a mental health crisis. And a friend who I deeply love, who I met through college, and who we have like this incredible otherworldly connection, immediately calls and she’s like, what are you about to do? And it’s a moment of, of, of fear. It’s a moment in my, of being lost. Being lost in pain and pain that is both my own, but it’s also communal.

Mm-hmm.

Um, a pain of, of just knowing. Like, knowing that more is possible, but that we don’t have it. And so therefore we’re hurting in such real deep ways. And she’s like, I’m buying a ticket. You’re coming to to stay with me for a month. And so I leave Guatemala and I go back to, and I, no, not go back to, and I go to LA actually, and I spend oh, some time with her. Just like, being nurtured and cared and loved and being seen, right?

Yes.

And so. I say all of that because that leaves like a few months where, like, I didn’t go to my parents and I’m cared by them, and I share my journey with them too. And so, I don’t know, I’m, I’m sharing this like organizing journey deeply aware of I’m organizing for and with my community. I’m organizing yes for this body, for myself, for my mother, for my grandparents, and for the many, many generations to come. Aware of, of the living conditions that my body has experienced, that our collective bodies have experienced, and a deep commitment to a better world and to therefore like intergenerational care and and resistance. And so that’s a little bit of the organizing background that like, then brings me back to the us but I’ll, I’ll stop there.

Yeah, because I wanna ask the next question, which is, okay, so that’s the justice line, that’s the organizing line. This work that you’re such a badass at. Okay. Now, when does ministry come into it? I know that you’re a PK, a preacher’s kid.

That’s right.

So was it inevitable that you be in ministry? So many, I think of us who have a call to ministry either delay or deny that call because of our sexual orientation or gender identity. And so I’m wondering about that journey, like so where does the ministry get interlaced into that organizing journey? Because now you’re at this beautiful, sweet spot of both being fully in ministry and fully in organizing, and it fits, it seems like from over here, like hand in glove. They go so smoothly and fluidly together and you move so beautifully back and forth between the two centers and, and like make them make sense together. But like, how did you get to here. How did you get to that point?

I feel like to others, it was clear to me, no. As a PK, I feel like I grew up and I was like, oh no, I will never, like, you know, go into the ministry in that way. But literally, that one year where I’m in my mental health crisis and especially, many times before, but it’s, it’s within that year where I’m meeting, like, random people. Yeah. And people are telling me I should go to seminary. And people had told me before and I was like, nah, it’s not for me. That’s my dad. Um, and then. I’m like in this moment of like, what is next? What am I doing with my life? Yeah. And then everybody’s telling me I should go to Seminary.

Seminary.

And I was like, man seminary, really? But if I was to go to seminary, it has to be a seminary that is committed to justice. Um, yeah. And so people start telling me about Union Theological Seminary here in New York. And I applied there and I applied to Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. ‘Cause that’s where my dad studied. And so, I get accepted to both. But then, of course I wanted to go to Union. There’s long lineage of liberation theology and so

And like your mama going to the big city.

That’s right. That’s right. Yes. That is just wild. Just full circle. Again, just life works. And so, I end up moving, but I end up moving, and I’ll say this. Like I end up moving at a time where I’m also moving through grief. Because I had been one of the caretakers for my grandmother that last year. She was diabetic, had many complications and so a cousin and I were caring for her. And I shared with her that I was gonna move back to the states and she was absolutely heartbroken. She understood, of course, as a devout Christian, me going to seminary was like an incredible gift and like she was really proud. But she was really heartbroken that I was gonna leave. Yeah. And she was like. What am I gonna do? Like what am I gonna see you? And you know, I try to comfort, I try to, like, affirm that we would video call each other. And this is the reality, right? Of migrants, of, of living between worlds. Of not fully here, fully there. And being everywhere. Where, of course I wanted to be with my grandma. Of course, I wanted to pursue a ministry. And so it’s about like two weeks before I have to move that she continues to deteriorate to the point where she does pass away. And, you know, we, we celebrate her life. And I’m so conscious that, like, of our connection.

Yes.

And. And the heartbreak that she was experiencing. My nephew is born along that same, like within the month there. So there’s like this life and death and grief and the opportunity. Yes. And so I arrive in New York with all of that.

Of course.

In 2019, August of 2019, just before the pandemic.

Oh my.

And so I’m moving with, with this grief.

Yes.

And with this also in some ways reclaiming of of, of who I am. Uh, of this tapping into ministry and spirit and the divine in my life, telling me yes to go down this path. I really wanted to learn more about chaplaincy. Sadly, you know, economic-, we were talking about economic systems before, and for chaplaincy you have to do

C-P-E.

C-P-E, uh mm-hmm. During your studies. But it’s a time where you can’t get paid. You do work. And so I,

That’s why I didn’t do it also.

That’s right. Like I couldn’t do it. I had to work.

Who could do that?

Exactly. I had to work to pay for my housing and for my food. I was just coming from Guatemala. There was nobody to provide living in New York but myself, and so I was never able to pursue that. But, I did find the Kairos Center and I did my internship with them and I, they helped me understand the economic conditions that we were living under. The, this moment and, and how important it is for us to, to come together across the many lines that divide us, whether it be race or gender or sexuality, but to come together and, and, and to read the Bible and, and to create a world with all of our connected resistance. This is how I end up in, in seminary. I do think that a part of me being Queer and me being non-binary, definitely pushed back against me going into ministry. I,

Yeah.

After high school, I left the church for about 10 years. Just knowing that, like, I wasn’t welcomed for who I am, or that was my understanding at that point, to like being like, no, wait. God is love. God is created abundance. God created you and me in this fierce, sexy, queer self. Like God is all of this, right? So therefore, like, I wanna know more about this God, more about this lineage of like, of, of love, of abundance, of, of liberation, um mm-hmm. And. I wanna be able to share this with others. Especially, yes, within the Latinx community, but like anyone who’s hurting, anyone who has been told that they’re not created in the image of God when we know we are.

Are, yes.

When we know that God is, is, is everything, is God is queer. You know? Like,

yes, prove me wrong.

So, so that is how I connected my two worlds.

Yeah.

And you know, recently, even with Kairos, like, we continue to hold our Pride services in the month of June. And even just this past season, like we were really wanting to study the texts of terror that have been weaponized against us to say like, you know, some of those texts are, are not here to be saved. Like they’re problematic and they’re just hurtful. And others like have just been weaponized to annihilate us when that is not what they were intended for. That is the, the walk that I’m on now, like continuing to, to learn more about the Bible, to learn more about God. And to continue to create the world that we so desperately need, but the world that God intended to be a world of justice, a world of love, a world of abundance. And so here to do all of that.

All of that, yes. And I wanna talk a little bit more about your ministry of presence. Mm. I think that’s so beautiful to think about how, what it means and how it is to be with people, particularly in this moment. I feel like there’s so much, so much spiritual terrorism in this moment. And there is, there is something so critical and yet so understated about, uh ministries of presence and rituals of-. You’ve talked, you and I have talked and you were talking about building containers where we get to meet the divine, the divine in ourselves, the divine in others, and. And I’d love for you just to talk about like, do you have an example of something you’ve been thinking about recently or something you’ve done or, or what does that Ministry of Presence mean to you, particularly in this political moment?

Thank you for bringing that in. When I talk about Ministry of Presence, I always. Go back to me being five years old. And, maybe as you’re listening to this, you, you did not see how I was gonna jump back to me being five. But, it’s because when I was five years old living in Guatemala, my parents visited an elderly home. And they met this woman who had, who, who was terminally ill and who had been abandoned by her family. And, you know, during their time together, they ended up offering if she wanted to come to our home. Of course, when you are seen, when you are like loved, when like someone’s, a home is open up for you, you say yes wholeheartedly. So she was excited. She, she was grateful. And so she moved to our home. It was a parish home that we were living in at the time. And I, to this day, remember running down the stairs into her room and simply sitting in her bed. I cannot tell you what we talked about. Uh, but I can tell you that we were present with each other. That we saw each other, that we valued each other. Yeah. That we practiced a ministry of presence. And so, I’m five years old, she did end up dying in our home. And that really is what now, as, as I reflect back, like that’s what leads me then on this path. And in this ministry of just showing up, of being with people, of seeing people of, of caring for one another and of understanding how it’s done in the everyday. En lo cotidiano, we would say in Spanish. It’s in the everydayness where, where we have the opportunity. All of us. Mm-hmm. To build containers, to meet the divine, to meet one another, to create this intergenerational relationship, this interdependence with all that is living and to create a different world. Like, we’re bombarded with death dealing systems, that that traumatize our bodies and therefore that that limit, from our trauma, the ways that we’re able to relate to one another, that limit therefore our imagination.

Imagination.

If we are able to like. I was gonna say simply, but it’s not, it’s, it’s simple.

No, it’s hard.

But it’s hard. It’s simple because

It takes, it requires a leap.

Yes. It requires, like, a surrender, though. Mm. A surrender to, to what we’re like, if you’re an organizer it’s you surrendering to the world that you’re organizing for. And the org organizing for is not a future thing. It is a thing that is here. And so a ministry of present is like fully aware of the world that I’m headed towards, but that I am inhabiting here and that I’m practicing here. When you were asking about like rituals that, or like ways that I’ve practiced this, or spaces that I’ve created, it makes me think about the rituals around Día de los Muertos. Um, that in, in recent years, I’ve been able to, to craft and co-create and hold, with many others that are part of Freedom Church of the Poor. That you can also, uh, learn more and read ’cause we are releasing a book actually on September, eh eighth, uh, called We Pray Freedom.

Ooh!

It’s from Freedom Church of the Poor. That holds a little bit of, of this rituals. With Día de los Muertos it was this commitment to creating a container where we could grieve communally. This culture, though we are living through death dealing systems we don’t have systems or containers or practices to communally grieve.

Yes.

The different ways.

Lament.

That we’re being oppressed. Mm-hmm. The different ways that our communities are dying.

Yeah.

And it’s, for Día de los Muertos, there’s an element of, of celebrating life that is crucial as we hold each other in the depths of our, of our pain. Mm-hmm. Um, I think that creating this, uh, this rituals of remembrance to like, serve as a, as a bridge for our social movements to be able to connect to, to tradition, to, mm-hmm, to other generations, to other cultural practices. That are able to, to hold the, the liminality of life and death because we can’t, we can’t fully birth or live into this world of abundance and life if we don’t also hold and nurture and care the pain and the grief and the trauma that our bodies are carrying. Not only for the the, the atrocities of this moment, of the evil, of this moment, but everything our bodies and our ancestors have lived through in the past. We have to be able to, not just reckon, but care. Be mm-hmm tender and be caring to our bodies and our spirits today, to therefore create and embody the world that we want for ourselves tomorrow and for the many generations to come. And so Día de los Muertos has served as an opportunity to, to pause.

Yeah.

To, to remember. To resist, to recommit to the, to this work of, of justice.

Yeah.

Totally embedded and grounded in, in a practice and a ritual of, of ancestors. So there’s this like, dance and liminality of you are here, but you’re connected to the past and you’re connected to the future.

Future

That I think specifically rituals are able to, to help our bodies. I was gonna say understand, and there are elements that we understand and that our minor understand, but there are elements that. Our bodies can just know,

Know.

Um, that the ritual creates the container for us to at least surrender for our, our bodies, our spirit, uh, to experience.

Yeah. That makes me think of home and diaspora. Mm. And I’m wondering for you, we’ve been talking a lot this season in Teología Sin Vergüenza, because we’re focused in the diaspora and in English this season, in the US specifically, we’ve been talking a lot about home and what does home mean and what does home feel like? And so I’m curious for you who has lived now in many places and who travels to find more of our people all over. What feels like home or who feels like home, or where feels like home, all of those things. And, and does it feel like you are in diaspora? What is that experience like for you?

Because my dad is a pastor, it has meant that we have moved. A lot. It is only my first eight years of life that I’ve lived in one place, and then it’s almost every year that we have moved. My parents always taught us that home is wherever we are, that we make our own paradise wherever we are, and so. Home for me is, is many places, is many people, is both the people and the places that I know and the, and people and places that I don’t know, but that I know that others have walked that therefore have informed my body. And so, with that awareness, home is, home is here, home is now, and home is something I can’t even fully name, but I deeply experience and this is, this surrender with with a divine is this surrender with knowing that I’m, that I’m, that I’m cared for. Knowing that I’m held at all times. Yes. Home is my faith in that it feels like laughter, it feels like playing with, uh, or walking in nature with a 2-year-old picking up a stick and like walking alongside an ant. You know, like it’s that wonder. Of the world as me being this like tiny spec in it, in this like world, but in it, in like in history of like, yeah, there was a before there is a now and there will be a, a future. It’s this like awareness of like, I’m made out of, uh, stardust, right? Like, yes, home is, is is wonder is therefore like that surrender to that wonder. Home is like safety and belonging and dignity and, and, justice. I definitely feel it when I’m out on the streets, arm in arm with others who are chanting, who are singing, who are day in and day out, uh, figuring out how we create the world that we so desperately need. It is in that like interdependence and interconnectedness to, to all that is living, to all that is resistant and, and birthing life that I think I find home. I see myself in it, a part of the whole, I feel it in my body as part of many things. Mm-hmm. Um, as part of the cosmas, as part of a lineage that has resisted and will continue to resist.

Wow. Woo. What an incredible conversation. I wanna end us with the question that we end all of our episodes. Which is a continuation of this conversation about lineage. I feel like you’ve shared with us about your mom and about your grandma and place that you come from. And so in those moments when you need reminders of who you are and whose you are and, and where you come from, what, who are those ancestors? Whether they’re thinkers or theologians or cultural icons or family members, like what is that fount of restoration and remembrance? Who are those cloud of witnesses the closest to you?

I love this question and I love this question because it’s a constant reminder that we are not alone.

Mm-hmm.

It’s this reminder that we are doing this with, with many others, and that we’re standing in the shoulders, that we’re standing alongside like many others who, who have resisted. And, and I think therefore living of, of my mom, who still to this day is like, you know, trying to unlearn the machismo that has been passed down. Like, trying to learn how to slow down that it’s okay for her to slow down and to rest. Yeah. That she doesn’t need to be serving everyone all the time. That she can choose herself and what brings her joy. You know, like

Mm-hmm.

Then I do this work like, I never. I’ll say this, like I’ll never, I never came out to my grandma. The, the one that I was like, really, well, okay, I’ve never come out to, there’s only two cousins who know about me back home in Guatemala, and so definitely my grandma did not know. But I do this work, and I tap into, into fully who I am so that she can be liberated too. Uh, from anything and all the ways that made her feel that she needed to be any less than her full self. Yeah. And I think about Gloria Anzaldúa, you know? Mm-hmm. Who once said, I change myself. I change the world.

That’s right.

And so like that awareness of, it comes back to my body. It comes back to this like everydayness en lo cotidiano of me practicing the world that I wanna see in the way that I move through the world right now. Being aware of like those liminal spaces, those, those borderlands that we’re crossing all the time and that as you and I, uh, were saying at some point too, like the things are not like black and white. Mm-hmm. There is a lot of gray. And so there’s a lot of, of queering, right? There’s mm-hmm. There’s this, this expansiveness to our understanding of ourselves. To our understanding of our relationship to Mother Earth. To, to this ability to therefore like, imagine and deconstruct, and therefore construct and transform the, the, the structures that we are living under so that we are able to all tap into the abundance of the world. And I think too about like, Audre Lorde Yes. And the ways that she talks about like caring for herself, not as self in, uh, self indul indulgence, um, but as a form of political warfare. Of just like, the ways that we care for each other. But we care for each other in relationship to the other, is like what I’m connected to, what I’m tapping into to continue to love myself, love this body. And, and more connected to Guatemala. I am also thinking about Las Abuelas de Sepur Zarco. Which are the grandmothers of Sepur Zarco. Which is this community in El Estor Guatemala. Who were sexually abused during the civil war, and who took to court and won, like, being able to persecute, um, mm-hmm, at least two of the men that caused so much harm to

Yes.

them, to their communities who helped disappear you know, many of like the men in that community, but like in Guatemala overall. Like, and where we saw just through their fierce love to their community, how justice can persevere in some element. Yeah, in some ways. And so I think about them like just their fierce commitment to, to justice to something else and. To all the women, to all the gender non-conforming bodies that day in and day out are like willing to try new things. Like, willing to unlearn and commit to, to our full connection with, with life that can therefore birth a world of where every, we say in the movement, we say, if you lift from the bottom, everybody rises. Like, a world where we commit to building, at the grassroots level from the bottom up, so that everybody has access to the world’s abundance. And so I’m thinking of them, and I’m carrying them into this space and into this work.

Ooh, yes. I wanna be in this work with you, also. I think this is just a really important theological framework to put on top of justice work. Because many of us were taught that justice or social issues or politics were something over there, and that we as Christians didn’t touch them. And those of us over here who are saving up our treasures for heaven shouldn’t touch those things. And I think you are the perfect example of how those things live together all the time, anyway. And so tending to both the spirit and the body, and the material and connecting those dots for people, and being in deep care and love and community with each other is so Christian and so important. And so I just feel like you are a perfect example of the best of las Sinvergüenzas, and I’m so, so grateful for your time and for you being with us today.

Thank you so much. Yes, we’re in this lineage together.

That’s right.

So I’m really grateful for that and for all who are listening and continuing to resist and continuing to be fully, unapologetically, sinvergüenzas.

Amen. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Hey there, welcome to this week’s episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today I get to talk with Karla Perez, who is a licensed mental health therapist currently living near Phoenix, Arizona, with her 18-year-old son and her two small dogs. With over 20 years organizing experience in social justice and community wellness, they are passionate about the intersection of mental health and justice making. 14 years ago, she co-founded Ministerio Latino, a ministry and community space for migrants and LGBTQIA+ folks to express their faith and spirituality, and to create support systems of accompaniment in Oakland, California. Hi Karla, welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m so excited to see you.

Thank you. I’m very excited to be here and see you as well.

Ooh, I can’t wait. I am just gonna jump right in. I would love for you to start, we always start with the same question, um, which is, if you identify as a Sinvergüenza why or why not, and I think in this context, since we’re speaking in English, for folks who might not have access to Spanish, sinvergüenza might be a new term. So maybe you could tell us a little bit for you, oh, what does sinvergüenza mean? Like, do you have experience of that growing up or in your culture, like in your family, anything like that. And just tell us, like, a little bit about yourself. Like tell us anything you want, really.

Okay, awesome. I definitely do identify as a Sinvergüenza for sure. Um, yeah, like, yes. It feels great saying it out loud.

That’s right. It takes us sometimes a long time to get here, doesn’t it?

It does. It definitely, particularly for me, I think it took me a while as well, for a lot of reasons. But I think with Sinvergüenza what it means to me is, um, you know, someone that kind of walks to the own beat of their drum, um, and don’t necessarily

Yes.

Yeah, they don’t necessarily follow scripts, guidelines, particular expectations from society, their culture,

Rules!

Um, families. Yeah, rules. All of these things, like all the, the, the very, very descriptive or even boxed in categories that oftentimes I think society tries to place on individuals, especially folks that are either queer, like myself, women, femmes, um, folks that are non-binary. Again, like myself, don’t fit into these boxes. And so, um, it’s, it’s a bigger context or praxis, if you will. But I, yeah, I, I feel that it took a while to get to this place, to feel free enough to be able to claim that as part of my identity and, and just, it’s like a lifestyle, if you will.

I love that somebody who walks or dances to their own drum beat, or, um. I think that’s part of what’s so beautiful about our community also, and like the ways that there’s like so many different sub identities within our identities and different communities because there just is a ref- it feels sometimes like there’s a whole alphabet of letters and that shows me that there’s so many different ways to be that we as a whole group of people have just kind of been like, we just refuse to be stuck in those tiny little boxes because even new names aren’t like complete without the fullness of who we are. And so just, yes, hearing and feeling people claim themselves feels like it is shameless because we are literally taught.

Yeah.

Almost all of us, and especially if you grew up in church, like mm-hmm, you were taught you’re supposed to be this one way.

Yeah.

And so I feel really proud of being una Sinvergüenza because it means yes, not only am I saying like, I can’t fit into your box, but I’m saying I actually don’t want to, I wanna be me.

Mm-hmm. That’s very true.

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about that process for you.

I, in a way, you know, to be honest, if, if I can think back far along, I can think as young as a 6-year-old, you know, where I would see novelas or just like, you know, things that are very part of like the culture and like, oh, everybody would be like, oh, the marriage and I don’t know, things like that. And I always felt like, oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t really know if I want to do that. But it would just be a lot of questions, or me questioning, like, the, the, the identity of how God was supposed to be. And he, and all of these things that I felt. I just had so many questions. And so I think from a very early age that I can, I can name and say it started from there, and it just carried through. And then when I maybe started experimenting or exploring more, uh, where I allowed myself was around college time where I had the opportunity to be around different people and, and be around different experiences. And then, and then, you know, becoming a mom at an early age. And that part was still kind of like, okay, so sure, like expectations of what would make my family happy at that time. And I did those things too. Um, and yet within that I was also like having an internal revo- revolution in, you know, internally. Where I was like, yes, I’m a mom and yes, I, you know, present very like heteronormative, but I also feel all of these things inside. And so I think a lot of the people that I had around me and continue to still have around me that allowed me to be able to ask these questions, explore, not feel ashamed, um, and question things. And I think also being in, doing, uh, from a very early age, doing a lot of community work, to be honest. That’s where I found my own community as well. Communities, I should say. Um, I think that’s where I also found these safe spaces to explore those things.

Well, like, the ability to ask questions and be curious feels like such a God given gift. Mm-hmm. Uh, that we get to like, be curious and learn and sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to not ask questions and just go along with what we’re taught. And I think it’s really brave when we are willing at any age to start listening to our own questions and not just pushing them down of like, well, it must be a lack of faith, or something must be wrong with me, or I need to try harder.

Yeah.

Because that is what we, tell ourselves until we, sometimes we just can’t anymore. Um, but I really am interested for you, like you were a mom at a young age, and that ability to be a mom, you were like totally completing a like good woman, Uhhuh, kind of like trope.

Yep.

But you weren’t sure that you wanted to be a mom before that happened. And so like, tell us a little bit about that experience. I know that you’re like the oldest daughter, you have a lot, I think a lot of our folks would understand that experience of being like a Latina who was like the oldest daughter who has lots of expectations for like being the role model.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so how did, how did that work for you? Having those expectations, having your own questions, fulfilling some of them, but still having, yeah. You know, a whole internal world that had different thoughts. What was that? What was that like and how did that play out for you?

Hmm. That’s a great question. ‘Cause I think back at times of that time period, and it was extremely hard. It was very difficult because I oftentimes, I would, I, I would oscillate in between from spaces of being like, yes, I have a right, like you said earlier, to ask these questions, like the, the ability to, the access and ability to be able to ask questions and to, you know, to go internal and explore that internal world. And other times because of either, you know, pushback from folks or questioning, or people like, you know, questioning my, I feel like my own humanness was questioned at time, like, what’s wrong with you? Or por qué eres así? Por qué piensas-, you know, um, things like that. Like I, you know, mm-hmm. I had a, uh, one had only one child and you know, now he’s 18. But oftentimes when, we had him, it was like maybe six months after, or a year after, I was asked like, oh el otro? Like the next, when’s the next baby coming? It’s like, well, how do you know even if I want another child in the first place? So, it was just, it was really difficult. ’cause then I oftentimes felt like I was, I always made a joke actually, um, at that time to my, my then partner and I would always say like, oh, um, I was born without like a couple chips. And I, I think they forgot it in the factor-, the factory settings, that I didn’t come with those like, um, anhelos, or like desires to wanna do these things. And so there’s this like push and pull where I felt like,

Like to have lots of kids in a big family.

Yeah.

Yeah. Was that the chip that was missing? Yeah.

Yeah. Or like desiring to like, follow certain roles as like the wife or the mom, you know, or like the oldest daughter. Um, and like having to follow all the rules, and be sometimes the caregiver, the breadwinner. In college, I, I was in college, um, was about to get married and this is before, like a year before my kid was born. And then my grandmother, um, was dying from cancer and she had raised me. And it was like this expectation. And I did that. I did that from my heart, but it was really difficult. I think back now, I’m like, wow. Like to put that pressure on like a 21-year-old, um, to-

Yeah,

To take care of a cancer, um, patient who was my grandmother, at the same time. And be her main, um, caregiver and, and you know, she, she passed away after six months. But, it was just a lot to carry. But it was just like the expectation.

Yeah.

‘Cause you’re the eldest, you’re the oldest kid. And, um, you know, first generation. So like, you have to also support your family, your parents, while I’m also a new mom, while also navigating like my own educational journey that I wanted to do as well. And also, you know, my own identity, other parts of my identity as well. So.

And it’s like not even sometimes seen as the miracle that it is to be able to juggle those. Mm-hmm. At all. It’s just the expectation of like, this is what we have to do and, mm-hmm. coming from people who know what it is just to do what you have to do. There isn’t sometimes even reflection on like, how hard it is. And I wonder if your, like now self has, like, gives that former self mm-hmm. Lots of love and compassion and like

A hundred percent.

You did that thing. Yeah. Because we had to do it for ourselves sometimes, right?

Yeah. Yeah. There was no prototype or formula like I was that, I was like, I was it. So I didn’t have anyone to lean on or anything. The expectations were for you baby, like, you gotta do that. Like, then your sister’s here and like, she’s following your steps, so you gotta make sure like you don’t mess up and you do these things this way. So it’s a lot, like during that time I, I followed a lot of like rules and expectations. And that model, um, immigrant story, right? Like that narrative. I definitely fell into that trope at that time because I didn’t wanna disappoint a lot of people. I didn’t wanna disappoint my family.

Yeah.

You know, it was extremely difficult and I oftentimes it within my own therapy, and my shadow work stuff that I’ve done too, I definitely have, um, allotted time to grieve that version of myself and what I went through and, uh, just give that, that timeframe a compassion and care that, you know.

Yes.

She went through at that time or you know, they went through at that time.

That’s right. I feel like that grief is real. Like, I think we can hold so many things at the same time if we give ourselves space to. Which is like, yeah, we can both be proud that we did those things. We can both love our families, and we can grieve what we had to do to, to get to where we are now.

Yeah.

At the same time, like we can hold all those things together.

Yes, it can coexist.

I’m curious about. Right. They can totally coexist. Okay, so I wanna hear a little bit more about your queerness and your journey around that, because yeah, I first heard of you as the co-founder of Ministerio Latino. So yeah, Ministerio Latino for me during pandemic, you know, what I know of it, I would love for you to tell more. But what I learned of it, um, was through another Sinvergüenza, Reverend Rhina Ramos, and during pandemic everything was locked down. I was like in Appalachia, deep in the woods. And to find this community like inclusive, queer and trans community of people like across the US in Latin America. But folks who had had a lot of experience with immigration being detained, queerness, transness, and seeing a church community that was committed to not only accompanying but celebrating

Yeah

Our community, our L-G-B-T-Q-I-A+ and Christian and immigrant community was so unique that I just looked forward, even though I was literally on the other side of the country, I looked forward to that time so much. And that was just a respite for my soul during that time. Yeah, and that’s how I learned about you because you were the co-founder with Rhina Ramos, and she would always talk about you. And, and I’m curious because in our first conversation you said that you were an ally at the time. Is that true, true, that you were an ally at that time?

That is very true.

At the time that that Ministerio Latino was founded? Will you tell us a little bit more

Absolutely.

About that ministry and about you at that moment?

Yeah. That, you know what, that’s like a running joke.

Where were you, what were you doing?

That was like, it’s like now a running joke within our own community. Like in the, in the, the folks that were there at that time. ‘Cause they’re like, and you were so married and like so straight.

To a dude. You were married to a dude.

To a yeah, very to a straight guy. Yeah. Yeah. Like very accepting by the way, you know. But like, just, yeah, like that, heteronormative again, couple. And I was like, yes. Um, at the time, Rhina Ramos, una pastora reverenda, Rhina Ramos, was doing a lot of community work. I was doing a lot of community work, and then we just, you know, connected at that time and became really fast friends. And she came up with this amazing vision to create a space for, um, LGBTQI+ folks. Specifically though, for like migrant and, and, and, you know, the cherry on top, especially for folks that were Spanish speaking too, because there’s just, there’s, it’s hard to come by, um, to find a place like that or a space like that. Um, and also that practices their faith. Like what, what are you talking about? Um, so

Literally, yes.

Yeah. And it came from this space for her of like, her wanting to find something like that. And then I was also, like I would mention earlier, I was going through my own, you know, revolutions internally where I was like, I wanna know more. I wanna explore more. Like, but I, it’s just really, you know, I was just going through that time period. Mm-hmm. And it was beautiful because we just, um, meshed and coalesced really well. I was like the ally at the time, and, you know, I followed because I have so much respect for Rhina. I was like, whatever you do, whatever you say I’m there. Just tell me when to go and what to do. And, and we did. And it was, it started literally in a living room of a family gu- um, a Guatemalan family. That had migrated recently at the time. And, uh, we went and talked about, you know, um, our take our sinvergüenza take of the story of, you know, Christ during Christmas time. And they were just kind of like, whoa. Well. Because their son, um, identified as gay. And so we were talking to the family, like, we didn’t realize it. Now I think about it, it was like, oh, we were kind of low key doing family therapy in a way, but also, you know teología. It’s just like all the things, all the things. Um, yeah. And then it evolved from there and then it kind of started growing from her space to, from her living room, to um, where, you know, the United Church of Christ adopted Ministerio Latino. Where, we’re part of their ministry. And it’s grown for over I think at this point it’s like 12, 13 years that’s been running and

Amazing.

Yeah. It’s, it’s been an amazing experience, to say the least. Yeah. The, the work that they’ve done and we’ve done, and I, and I say they, because now we have like community members that are there. This is in California. I’m now in Arizona.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I support in different ways. Mm-hmm. Like from afar. But, um, it’s just amazing work that they’ve done and they continue doing that. We continue doing, yeah.

I love the story of folks who are allies because I didn’t know, like literally I didn’t know until the moment that I first kissed a girl that I, I like it. I never thought, it never occurred to me. It wasn’t even on the table as a possibility. And then it just like hit me like a sledgehammer in the face and I was like,

Doesn’t it?

Oh my gosh, here I am and this is me. But I’m, but like for the folks who are allies, who are like, no, I belei-, because I was like, I thought it was a sin literally until it happened to me. And then I had a whole like process of trying to figure out what I thought theologically. Yeah. But for folks who are allies and it’s like you are close, you’re so close, and then you just keep getting closer and then at some point you crossed the line. And so I’m curious of like, how was that journey for you, especially like being married to a man and, but you were in like organizing. Yeah. And you were in movement space. Yes. So I’m sure there’s like a whole consciousness that happens. So tell us a little bit about that journey. ‘Cause I think it’s really important for folks to hear mm-hmm. Like, these things happen in our community all the time. Yeah. Um, and it’s really important part of the story.

Absolutely. You know, it happened a little bit later. So, you know, I, I was very heavily involved in Ministerio for a number of years when we started it. And then at the time, my husband and I, we moved to Arizona, which is where we’re at now. Or you know, my son and I. And a lot of the things that I gained from Ministerio, the things that I was like beginning to explore more of, really definitely stayed with me. Going back to what we said earlier about, um,

mm-hmm.

My role as a older daughter, I was always just in California, I was always, in that time period, just always consumed with supporting, helping, being a provider, a caregiver, all the things, right. That we all do for, you know, older kid kiddos do. Um, I didn’t really have to do that here in Arizona because we came here, um, honestly with no family. Um, there’s no family members.

Wow.

We just took, yeah. Um, at the time my then husband took a role as a, as a union representative here in the regional area in the southwest. I think that space allowed me to be able to finally kind of sit with all of these things and explore more and like, think about it. And, and I had really honest, that, you know, one, the thing that I’m very thankful for is that him and I always had, um, a very open conversations and communication. And so I was always very honest and said, you know, I’m having these feelings. I, I’m finding, you know, yeah. Women very attractive and I don’t know what to do with these things. And meanwhile I’m talking to, you know, my friends from California still. And the beautiful thing that he, you know, gifted at that time, that relationship was saying, you know what, you should really give yourself the opportunity to explore that. Because what if, you know what, if you are queer, you identify as such and you know, you don’t wanna not give yourself that opportunity to, to explore that. And so we had an agreement and I had that opportunity. It happened, you know, with a friend, unexpected. It was not, it was not planned or anything, but it did. And, um, it, to be honest, it like when you said it hits you like a ton of bricks, it hit me with a ton of bricks. Because it just confirmed. It confirmed. I was like, I knew it. I knew I was queer. I knew it. Yes. Feelings I had and, and, you know, it was, it was amazing. It was really great that I, I, I’m very thankful that I was able to experience that. Yeah. Had I not explored that, it, I just always think like, who would I be still. In what spaces would I still be and what shadows would I still be in right now at this moment?

I, we had talked before and I wanna bring it back to this conversation. You had talked about this moment, you know, where your son is 18. My daughter’s 15. I only had one also. And I know that like expectation of like, why, what do you mean you only had one? What happened? Like there must be something broken or like Yeah. You know, but um, you were talking about rediscovering yourself and the space to like learn more about you and, you know, I think it’s really wonderful and exciting to think about, okay, what’s, what’s now what’s alive? And we were talking about like gender and binaries and using they and she pronouns and like this queerness and this space. I mean, literally the desert of Arizona has so much space, like just it feels cosmically, like the sky is bigger there. Sometimes I get really intimidated by that big sky. Yeah. But I’m curious like, what is that? How, how is it going? Like what are you doing to rediscover yourself? What is come, what is bubbling up? What makes you feel excited? What have you learned? Yeah. Um, now at this age, which feels like a very different rediscovery process for me at least than when I was in my, like teens and early twenties.

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I feel like I’m still in the thick of it, to be honest. Uh, we were, I just having this conversation yesterday actually with some friends, um, about that and that, um, you know. It start, it has, it has started with the basics of, oh, okay. Now that my son is, um, in the process of, you know, starting college and he’s more independent, I, I mentioned to you that he is autistic and, you know, with, with lower supports needed, but nevertheless, right. In terms of guiding us, uh, a person in the world, you know, with these different abilities can be really challenging. It just requires a lot more. It, as my cousin said once, she was like, it’s a very complicated maternity when it’s like that. And so I, I have always been all about my kiddo and supporting and so now that he’s 18, he’s having, um, his own ris- discoveries. Yeah. And all of that, but. And seeing that and his ability of doing that and like sharing that with me. ’cause we have a, an amazing relationship and very close in communication too. It has given me also permission to again feel like, oh, okay, cool. I can also do that for myself right now. And it’s okay. Like, you’re okay? Yes, we’re okay. Um, so yeah, like I am slowly and surely starting to, like I was mentioning in our first conversation, you know, I’m investing in myself in terms of my body and um, moving in different ways, battling through different autoimmune stuff. You know, conditions that I have. And the changes. And, but also when it comes to like my identity and things like that, I’ve, I’ve been really patient with myself and really allowing myself to be in, you know, queer spaces here in Arizona now. And that’s been a amazing, I don’t have anything definitive at the moment that I can say like, oh, this, you know, but I can, I can say that I’m already beginning to try different things, whether it’s like hobbies. Yeah. Whether it is, you know, queer spaces or queer spaces that I’m, I’m in here as like more of a, a, a person that has a 18-year-old and giving myself that permission. It’s a really beautiful thing. It’s like a sense of rediscovery all over again. So, um, I’m excited. Yes. I’m very excited to, to do that.

I love it. We met for the first time in person last year because you came to Teología Sin Vergüenza’s like transnational gathering of queer and feminist theology. And so I think a lot of folks would be interested in like what that experience was like, especially coming from the US And we particularly included folks in diaspora, um, to be able to come and have that interaction. And I think it’s a probably a little bit different from you because you are an immigrant yourself. So there was some folks there who were born and like first gen here in the US who went down to have some of their first encounters. But you were kind of returning back to Central America in that, in that space. But, so I’m just curious for you, will you tell us for listeners a little bit about what was the, Encuentro, what was it like for you? Was that part of this process of rediscovery? Yeah. And like giving yourself permission. Mm-hmm. Tell us a little bit about that.

That’s actually what it was. It was, it was one of my, my other entry points recently, um, actually, ’cause my kiddo was still 17 at that time, so I was like, I’m just gonna go and, and do this. And this is an opportunity to be in more of the spaces and oh my goodness, the fact that it was in Latin America and Mexico, Mexico even more. Like, it just made it so much more enriching. But the space was an amazing gathering of folks. Especially I miss, so the majority of folks that I, I was able to talk to were folks from the dia, well, not even from, well yes, the diaspora for sure, but individuals that are like in the thick of it in Latin America, you know, um, challenging, just status quo, doing the Sinvergüenzismo out there. It’s just always remarkable and admirable to me to see that. Um, the theologians, community activists, um, attorneys, you know, just people that come from different experiences and have the different backgrounds. But are also, there’s like, um, a thread that connects, which is around um, yeah. It’s just, it just this, this bigger like theology or sense of, of what it means to, to live fully in your identity and to, to be in community and share these spaces together. And it, it was amazing to hear the stories of individuals. I, I came back and I was definitely invigorated and I wanted to experience more of those spaces like that. To, to hear people that are on the ground doing the work and the stories of people like, you know, um. This lady from Ecuador who is an attorney and like how she’s challenging at the state level. All of these things that are just, yeah, it’s just amazing. It’s just incredibly mind blowing. Um, and to be able to share that was. It again, it felt like a gift, to be honest. Yeah,

Same. I felt like it was such a blessing for me and I feel so humbled by literally everybody. Everybody there had a reason to be there, had a story for why they were invested in queer and feminist theology and um, I think it matters that those spaces that we get to cross- pollinate. Like we had, um, I think there’s this question in my mind that I’d love for you to speak to, which is like, there is this we space that exists between where we’re from and where we are now and mm-hmm. My question for you is like, as an immigrant Yeah. Like, you know, do you feel, what, what is home? Where does home feel like? Does, is home, Nicaragua? Is home, California? Is home, Arizona? Is home home, something else entirely like Yeah. This experience I think that so many folks have of like ni de aquí ni de allá. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, I’m curious what your experience is with that, if you have that similar feeling. Or if you feel like, nope, I am fully US person here in the US like here. And, and if that feeling of like being from somewhere else ever goes away or, you know what, what’s that like?

I, um, have always. Thought about this. It’s very much things that I have, I’ve written about. Um, and, and, and think about oftentimes with, with folks. And so the, the, the short answer is absolutely not. I do not feel like I’m from here. The US. You know, not at all. I, I’m very, very clear from this lens. Like I, I’m an immigrant, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m originally from Nicaragua and those were my, my, my ancestors come from, from the Latin America diaspora and even, uh, further from other parts of the world. But, um, because we also, like in my own in Nicaragua, so I have also Caribbean and like Black Indigenous as well. Mm-hmm. And so I honor that, very much so. And so I feel I have always felt this big, big, big connection to a sense of community from back home and. And as an immigrant have always kind of been in the space of, yeah. Like, exactly you said ni de aquí ni de allá. Yeah. Not from here, neither from here, nor from there. I navigate multiple worlds, um, two or more worlds. Yes. Where it’s like, yes, Latina, but also sometimes I, I feel, you know, Caribbean, Indigenous, Black in terms of like, you know, ethnically where, where my family comes from. And the languages too that my, my mom, my mother still speaks Miskito, which is the traditional indigenous language in Nicaragua. I have always felt like very much extended. Not, again, not, not boxed in one category or anything. So very diasporic in that sense of how I, how I operate or how I move in the world very much that way. Home feels like the community spaces that I form, to be honest. Mm. Um, I have many homes. Yes. Yeah, I have many homes. Yes. If I can say, um, Nicaragua feels like home, but also the Bay Area feels like home. And then here in Arizona feels like home, a part of home as well. Like there’s little homes that I’ve been able to make throughout, although recently I’ve been thinking about moving back to California, maybe towards like southern California, where now my sister and her partner reside. And so to be closer a little bit to, to family. But that’s something that I’m kind of, it’s out there. I’m kind of thinking about too, like just because land also is important to me. And being around water. Yes. And come from water people. And so that’s been something that has been in my spirit lately. But I feel that that’s how I, how I move in the world. It feels like I have many homes. Um, and I find them through the communities that I, that I create, that I’m able to be a part of. And that’s, again, it’s a blessing to be able to have been able to be spaces like Ministerio has been a home for me. For many years. Right? It still is in many aspects.

Uh, it feels like in your, in every piece of your embodiment, you are a multiplicity of things and people and ancestors and all of those things. I think that’s so beautiful. I think that’s so beautiful in a world that tries to get us to be so small. You, your existence, like literally your existence is, and I know you as so much more of a free spirit and so much more expansive. So it’s interesting to hear your stories about what it was like to be smaller or more boxed in because my experience of you is literally the opposite of like a spirit that’s just freer. Um, and so I think it’s, thank you, important for us to name that like it’s a process and we can do that. Mm-hmm. Uh, I wanna talk a little bit about what’s going on right now in this country. Yeah. Um, because you not only are an immigrant yourself, um, but you are in Arizona, which is a border state. Mm-hmm. And also part of your work is mm-hmm. with our community in mental health. Mm-hmm. And so I think in this moment it is incredibly brave for people willing to like, Sinvergüas, say what they’re seeing what they’re experiencing and being willing to name those things. And so I wonder, like, will you tell us a little bit about your work and what you are, what you’re finding, how you are feeling yourself, and how you see our community in this moment in Arizona? Mm-hmm. And what is, what is going on? How would you talk about that? Or how would you give name to what, what’s kind of happening in the political targeting and mm-hmm. I would say spiritual terrorism.

Absolutely.

That’s being waged against our community. Yeah. Will you tell us a little bit about that and mm-hmm. And how your, like, your entry into that world as, as a care provider for our people.

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, it’s absolutely atrocious. What is happening, to say the least. My work as a mental health therapist, I work, I work for a community-based, um, organization that mainly provides services for, you know, Latinx individuals, especially folks that are, that don’t have insurance or do have like, very minimal insurance or underinsured. And so I just, it does feel like very much, um, being in the thick of things. Uh, I have clients that are either thinking of self deporting or have already self deported or come from mixed status families. It’s been a lot of holding space. Re- especially more recently of, um, holding space for, for folks to process their fears, their pain, the instability, or just not knowing what’s to come next. Especially here in Arizona that has been, you know, historically such a violent, uh, has violent, uh, decision makers, lawmakers, um, against immigrants in the immigrant communities. So that’s kind of the source that I’ve been providing. Right. And also advocacy too. Me as an organization, me as a person too, provide a lot of advocacy work too. Um, whether through legislation, lobbying. And even in the way that we provide direct care. Just even thinking about, you know, when, when patients come in through the doors, where do we put patients? Like we don’t wanna put them in the lobby because, you know, if ICE comes in. Because they can, um, at times and have done at times. We might have a place where they can go towards the back of the, of our clinic and things like that. Um, where we’re really thinking strategically of how to maintain the safety too, not just hold space, which is great, you know, and that’s provided a sense of safety, of course, but also just physically. And how does that look like? For folks. And then also, like we were restarting the, we had a program called the Live Out Loud Program. Where it was for, it is for, um, L-G-B-T-Q-I individuals. And so right now I’m actually working with, um, or called trying to collaborate or create a, a, a relationship with an organization here called TransQueer Pueblo. And they work with migrant L-G-B-T-Q-I individuals that are either in detention centers or just came out of detention centers or in a process of getting some sort of, um, legal status for themselves. Mm-hmm. And so creating a, um, uh, a connection there through those organizations and providing spaces for them. So it’s direct care, but it’s also advocacy, community organizing work too. And, um. You know, trying to do the best that I can. There’s days that are really heavy, to be honest, as you can imagine, and other days that are really inspiring too, um, where folks are able to share and say, you know, uh, I’m glad that we can talk about these things and we can, we can cry or come up with like, you know, strategies or plans. It’s not just therapy for therapy. It’s like, okay, so what, what can we do? How can we support one another? And what are the support systems that we can provide, um, as a community? All of us, like we’re, we’re, we’re not just providers. It’s like we’re in this as well, you know, so, yes. Mm-hmm. So providing those spaces, uh, has been incredibly important. And being connected to, again, community being rooted is incredibly important. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I wonder what you think about God in all of this, like theologically speaking, as we look at what’s around us and so much I, for me, I just am like, how can anybody think that anything that’s happening right now

Yeah.

Has anything to do with Christianity? And yet there’s still this facade or something. I can’t quite, it doesn’t quite make sense in my brain. Like it does not compute. Yeah. But I still hear people talking about God and the Bible. Mm-hmm. To try to like somehow legitimize Yeah. Any of the political terrorism that’s happening against our bodies and our spirits. And so if somebody were to say to you, like, where, where does God fit into all of this is. Are they, is God on their side? Or like, you know, the, just theologically, when you encounter folks, especially folks who are raised in a really religious background mm-hmm. What are their theological wrestlings or questions? What are you thinking about or what would you say to, to those of us who are asking those kinds of questions?

Yeah. Kind of wrestling with those questions too. Absolutely. You know, I think that just from a more like political standpoint, like just, you know, who’s, from a legislative standpoint, running the country currently. They have weaponized, you know, God and religion for sure. Which is really unfortunate because that’s not the, the God that I believe in, does not does not want the world and spirit that way. For, it’s really unfortunate of how it’s being, like you said, legitimized. There’s a disconnect in how that their belief systems and how they implement it versus what I and people in communities that, um, don’t believe in that. And it’s completely the opposite and the way that it’s being used and manipulated and some, you know, to be honest, in some communities it’s working. Unfortunately, it’s really working. And

Yeah,

They’re kind of drinking the Kool-Aid to say that, you know, if you will.

Yep.

And so it’s, it’s really, it’s very dangerous. It’s very dysfunctional. It’s toxic. And clearly we’re seeing the tentacles of, of how things are, are working in, in our communities. People will sometimes feel like, well, you know, we must have done something wrong, or like, things are happening for a reason, or maybe Díos asi lo quería, God wanted it that way. And it’s like, mm-hmm. No, no. How can we see this from a different angle and perspective and under, but also understand. Like the landscape of how things are right now. Yeah. Politically. And how things are, like they’re, by design, it’s not that it’s, you know, necessarily God, it’s like things are happening for a reason and we are made to believe that. That’s actually one of the reasons why I got into mental health from the background of being a community organizer. Because I felt that yes, community organizing is crucial. It’s important, it’s like needed always. And at the same time, it sometimes, well, I think back then especially, it was missing the spiritual component of things. Um, in, in theology too, where it’s like, how do we, how do we intersect social justice with, uh spiritual practice too that believes in

Yes.

Yeah. Coming from that perspective and that background, that’s, and, and not, and not getting all preachy or anything. Right. But, but I,

That’s okay. You can get preachy here. You can get preachy here!

You know, but I, but definitely can’t do that with clients. Right? Like, there’s like a, a way to, you know, yes. That it can be done, you know, with, with healthy boundaries and things like that. But providing, at least from the perspective of like community mental health by providing a support system. For individuals to understand like, where does this come from? Like, we need to understand and have like that awareness of where, where is this coming from and why are we being made to believe these things? Because they’re not, they’re not accurate. They’re not true. Again, I keep saying it’s by design. Um, let’s, let’s be clear on that.

Right. And then from there it’s not even biblical.

It’s not even biblical. It’s, it doesn’t make any biblical sense.

Right. Literally. Yeah. I went into theology for a similar reason because I was doing direct service, like for recently arrived immigrants and particularly LGBT immigrants, and there was so much religion behind that was used to like accept suffering and oppression and marginalization and criminalization and all of that stuff. That I was like, this is not about God. But also I don’t have any, I don’t have the receipts to, to say, right. They would be like, but the pastor said, or the priest said. And so that was a big thing for me around why I wanted to go back to divinity school because I was like, okay, what does the Bible actually say? What is this God that we’ve all been given? And you know, we all have different versions of like whatever our denominations were, but there’s some basic fundamental things that I just felt in my spirit were like, not right. Like why would God not want me to love this person that I love so much? Or why would God make people trans if that was somehow bad or they were supposed to fight against it? Like I had deep wrestlings with what I had been taught and I feel like I wanted to know. Like I was like, I need some answers. God, either the God that like. I never had a question of whether God was real, but I did have a question of like whether God was worth following. Mm-hmm. And I feel like it was social justice and like my activism that gave me the information

Yes.

To be able to have my faith. And so I think part of what we do in Teología Sin Vergüenza is do this mixing of like mm-hmm. Faith with activism and politics. Yes. And a lot of people think those things don’t go together because they’re like, no, the earthly worldly stuff. Like, we’re not supposed to do that. We’re supposed to be spiritual. Mm-hmm. And I’m like, no, the reason that I believe in God is because I understand things that are happening around systemic oppression that I don’t accidentally blame God for. And, it is because of my faith in God that I feel called to do this community work. And I feel like that’s something that a lot of folks either don’t like or don’t understand. So I’m curious if that’s similar for you because

Absolutely.

I hear you talking about those things so tight together.

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah. I, I, I think I mentioned in our interview that I, uh, had done community organizing for a while, but then I actually, um, came into community or organizing with faith leaders. So it was, it was, uh, people organizing communities. And so it was one of the largest faith-based community organizations that exist. And actually they’re now in international. But I absolutely, that’s how I felt for me, that it was like, it, it incarnated the belief system that I grew up with. Which was like, and especially Nicaragua, like with, you know, um mm-hmm. Liberation of theology or theology, teología de la liberación. I’m saying it backwards in Spanish in my head. Mm-hmm. Um, but that’s kind of like the practices that I had, right? Like, it was like, yeah, no, no, no. You don’t just like believe in God, like you practice it. Like this is what, like you have to

That’s right.

Practice it. And so how does that look like in your community? Yeah. And so I came with that kind of foundation and, and through doing that faith-based community organizing, I found that intersection of those things. Um, and so again, here I feel like it lacks, especially in Arizona, definitely lacks a lot where, like you said, there’s just like a disconnect where it’s like either you’re very worthy or spiritual or ethereal in a way sometimes versus like, what’s happening in the community or like letting. I oftentimes hear like, just God, you know, take care of it. He’ll handle it. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, but we’re, we’re here, we’re here we’re

God made us.

And if we’re people of God, are we not people of God? And so like, through, through God and, and like spirit that moves through us, we can’t make these, um, things happen in our communities too? Like, is that like not part of our responsibilities or the teachings that Jesus had, you know? So, so it’s like really a lot of discernment and, and, and like peeling back on things that, that is in the Bible, but oftentimes it has the way that it’s been interpreted. You know, for convenience and may, may upholding, you know, systemic oppression, of course. That’s been, you know, taken out of context. So it’s, yes. Yeah. All of those things for, for me as a, as a individual here and, and just in general. Always and for sure always talk about these things and how they all connect. Right. Um, and how does that look like for, on, on a practical level, because I’m always about like the tangibles. Like how does that look like tangible, like how do we, how do we live in this sense of if, if like our theology or our practice is this way, how does that look like on a day to day? Um, that’s kind of where I’m at. Yes. Mm-hmm.

I think there’s so much to learn. Those of us who are in movements in the US from so much of what’s been happening both politically and theologically for generations in Latin America, and part of the hope for Teología Sin Vergüenza is to do some more of that cross pollination because of either the language, um, gap or access to each other’s media or things like that. Like in the US we generally have a scope of. Only things that are happening in the US and I think immigrant communities more than anybody else, has a scope that’s farther than just like the borders of the like continental US. Yeah. ’cause we are paying attention to what’s happening back home and other places where we feel like we’re in community. And I swear when I go outside the US. I have conversations with like taxi drivers. Yes. Or like the people at the front desk of a hotel or the waitress at the restaurant. And they can tell us about like they, they’re like, and about that president and about this law. And in the US it’s like, I can’t even tell you what’s happening in Arizona. Much less like what’s happening in like Guatemala. And so, yeah. I think there’s also something about, like, you just talked about liberation theology, and I think Latin American liberation theology gets like short, like a short mm-hmm. Very quick. At least in theology school, like and there’s this thing and it comes from Latin America and then onto the next theology. And I think it’s like we have the opportunity for folks who have lived that experience, that migrant experience. I think there’s a lot to learn, like, uh, so much to learn

Absolutely.

From the strategies and the theological approaches to suffering, to war, to displacement, to empire, to colonization. Like literally, if we can bring it into our knowledge here and do the work of like just opening the blinders just a little bit wider. And so I feel so grateful that you mentioned that and you’re like understanding of like, this is the theology I brought with me when I came here and that didn’t go away just because I moved countries.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think it’s, I always think of that too, and I always make a comment about that, especially when I’m out and, and I have gone, you know, back to home or Latin America, in general. Um mm-hmm. It’s just. Yeah. That’s a beautiful thing. You’re saying that is very true. That, um, you can have conversations with anyone, you know anyone, and they, they know exactly what’s happening. They have its analysis right. About what’s happening. Mm-hmm. Um, but I just feel like you

An opinion!

Strong opinions, which is great. You know, we, and we can have dialogue, like actual dialogue and conversations. Um, but it, it’s just everything here in the US is so compartmentalized. I think that’s too, again, by design, just to keep those blinders on

Yep.

So that we don’t feel connected, as connected to others, especially from the global south, you know? So again, everything is by design and there’s reasons why it’s done that way. Mm-hmm. And like media, you know, print media, social media now and everything is just, um, it’s def I mean, we all know, you know, how it’s run and so

We all know. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that’s so important. I wonder, um, is there anything else that we haven’t talked? I’m gonna ask you the final question about ancestors and like that fount. Is there anything else though that we haven’t covered or haven’t talked about that you would like to talk about? Before we, like, we’ve already been here almost an hour, if you can imagine. That is wild.

I saw that.

Um, um, but is there any other topic that you’re like, I really want us to talk about this.

I’m just, you know, maybe not so much of a question, but maybe like a comment that I am very excited to see for these next seasons, how it’s gonna look like, or episodes, how it’s gonna look like in terms of now having a place for a wider audience that speaks, that speaks English. And how that’s going to look like for the movement of Sinvergüenza. And how, like just larger conversations that I can foresee it expanding even more. Um, so that to me is very exciting. And I wonder how that’s gonna look like, just, I wanted to make a comment about that. Then that’s, that kind of like stayed in the back of my mind. I was like, I wonder how that’s gonna look like. I’m very excited about it. Um, but yeah.

Is there a conversation that you really hope we have as we’ve, like, as our community expands to include folks that don’t have access to Spanish or who speak English? What does that, what are some of those for you? I’m interested in what’s juicy. What feels juicy there?

Uh, me encanta. ’cause I remember how you would, you guys would say, um, in early, earlier episodes, like previous years, it was like, oh, el parte jugosa. I was like, yeah.

Yes, yes. We’re translating the, like, parte jugosa de la biblia

I love it.

We’re translating that as like, um, we’re plucking the ripest fruit from the Bible to make the, the juiciest theo- queer and feminist theology.

I love that.

You know, the things are hard. Like that double entendre is hard to translate into English. Yeah. But we’re doing the best we can with our little, like, crossover.

I love it.

Um, understanding, but yes, juicy is an important word in queer and feminist theology.

Absolutely. I remember in Mexico we had a whole thing where it’s like, yes jugosa. Like, the fruta! That was really cool. Yes.

Yes. frutas.

You know, again, being part of the diaspora, I think maybe that’s just because of my own experience. I wish there was an ability to create spaces for folks that are in the diaspora to have larger conversations with folks that are in Latin America that are there. Yeah. Um, yeah, conversations about how do we support each other. Obviously, like we also being here have a role. I know like there’s different abilities and access to resources and all these things, right. That like, you know, is, can’t assume just because we live here in the us like we have, but also, yes, there’s like more access to things here. And so how can we be more supportive without imposing our own stuff that, you know, from here? Um, that, yeah. It just, it just, I just heard so many different projects and initiatives and things like that that were going on. That I remember asking folks like, oh, you know, is there a way that we can support? And not just monetary always, right? Like, yes, monetary is great too. Yes. But there’s also other ways too that it’s not so, it doesn’t feel so always transactional. Uh, it feels very intentional. Yeah. And like it builds community. So yeah, maybe that’s a question that I always wrestle with. So my background was in international relations, just super quick. And so I guess I always think that way. Yeah. Like a very, very meta level. Yeah. Um, and so I was in my head always about like, how do I, yes. As a Nicaragüense you know, like vivienda acá, like living here in the US at some point I wanna be able to somehow support the, some type of work that’s already being done in Nicaragua from here. And I was able to do that. Um, a couple years ago, and it was a beautiful thing that we did. And those connections, and it was just very intentional, very deep level work that I always think about. I’m like, I really wish, like people from the diaspora here in the US were able to have those experiences like that.

Well, I just feel like there’s so much. Maybe it’s like loneliness or heartache. Or heartbreak. Yeah. And I think that’s both true from being here, but not like. Every day, I think of most of my growing up life, people would be like, where are you from? Where are you from? And I’m like, I was born in the us. I grew up in the US South. I sound like those people that were asking me that question. But I, from how I looked, was like immediately labeled as like not from here. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I think there’s that like this, like, El Sueño Americano, like once you’ve made it to the north and to the belly of the empire. Yes. Then you’ve like made it and you must be rich and everything must be fine, you must have no problems. But on the other side, it’s also like the abandonment of home and that like place. Yeah. Where our ancestors were buried and where we grew food and our connection to the land. And then again here being like, we are not, that, not fitting in here. And so I feel like it’s part of the Colonial project to like try to convince us to assimilate into this white supremacist world that makes us feel even farther from those places that we come from than we actually are. And so that work of trying to like tejer or weave together back that, that memory, that body memory, yes. That spirit memory and that connection. Yes. And recognize the access to privilege and power and all the things that we have being up Absolutely. Here it’s like that is very important spiritual work. Like the financial ties I think are easier to see and easier to identify. Yeah. And easier to like, recognize and see as important and so many folks send money home and things like that. Mm-hmm. And I don’t see as many people doing that work in the spiritual realm. In the, like, what does it mean to be spiritually displaced? Mm-hmm. And in this moment in time where we’re being displaced from, like Yeah. Immigrant communities are being displaced again within the displacement. Yes. Like, it’s just Yes. One thing after another. And I think that’s a particular kind of trauma.

Oh my goodness. Yes. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had just spoken to this to my prima, who I just, you know, I sponsored her last year from Nicaragua because at that time, Nicaragua had been going this, going through this dictatorship rule to a point where even this government recognized it prior to Trump, of course. Mm-hmm. The government said, okay, well these couple countries, um, we’ll allow this amount of slots for folks to be able to come in, um, through a sponsor. And so thankfully I was able to do that with my, my cousin and her family. And they came here. And so now that, going back to your political question, the, the political climate of where things are at right now. They’re living in this other, their sense of fear again. It’s like, wow, you just left a place where it was so oppressive in many ways. And so now you’re coming in here again under this rule of, of what’s happening too. So it’s like this double oppression that they’re experiencing, experiencing again. Um, so yeah, that just always stays in, in my mind. And the, that thought of, um, spiritual displacement, ’cause it definitely does feel that way. I always talk about feeling, even though it’s been here for over 30 plus years, Nicaragua as a home, it’s just always stayed here very much in my spirit, in my heart,

Yes and yes.

Um, that spirit will just, will always continue on and it, but it just feels like a sense of displacement and it just permanently has stayed with me. And I know it has stayed like that for a lot of people. Um, so this is a really great conversation and question for many of us that are here and also for folks, you know, back home as well.

Yeah. I think it’s important to talk about too, because, you know, there’s this aspiration for, for more, fill in the blank. Access to resources, education, more freedom, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Um, and we don’t wanna mess that up for folks. And also, at the same time, there’s a lot that is lost in that grieving that you were talking about. We can both, you know. Have chosen either economic migration, political migration, forced migration. We can have done that and at the same time feel the longing and the grief Yeah. Of that other place. Absolutely. And people that we were, and we came from and mm-hmm. So in that spirit, I’m curious about who are the cloud of witnesses or who are the, uh, ancestors, be they blood, political, cultural theory, you know, who are, who is, are those folks close into you that when you need reminders of who you are and whose you are and, and what you come from, where do you go for that renewal when you need it to, for those reminders? Like, who are those folks or who are, who are those peoples?

It’s a beautiful question. I start oftentimes with my grandmother. I think that my grandmother mm-hmm. Was my maternal grandmother was like my first, um, and she’s now obviously an ancestor at this point, but provided that sense of like just solidness, um, appre- love de- deep, deep sense of love for, for community and, and showed it in many in ways. And she was like, you know, this woman that believed in God, of course, like the God that, you know, old school, but nevertheless, like provided that those spaces for, for folks. And she always had people, we always had people in our homes. For, for multiple and sometimes, and I, you know, have grown up and follow very similar practice too. Um, where we’ve had a lot of folks that have stayed in our homes and things like that. Um, so I always start with her, but I always think about too, just writers that I, um, can think about from Latin America that also provide those spaces. I think of artists too, Mercedes Sosa, like as an artist, as a singer. Um mm-hmm. Who was a person who was exiled for many years too. And she sings of songs that speak to this grief as well, like this love and grief. Also, I’m like drawing a blank of so many different artists, too. But, um, yeah, theologians as well.

But music is important for you.

Yeah, yeah. Um, so not that directly connected to me, but of just individuals that throughout history, throughout my family, but also throughout history that have been able to. Speak to these things, um, in different spaces, whether it’s, you know, community activists, Angela Davis, you know, Bill Hooks and mm-hmm. You know, diff just different individuals that I can, that I, I think about that again, in different spaces, that provide these conversations that, or ask these really important questions. Um, that oftentimes is they’re either ignored or maybe not really thought about or put into writings or songs or things like that.

I love it. Oh, thank you for this time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a Sinvergüenza. Thank you for sharing your heart with us. It’s really, really important that our community know each other, and so I’m just so grateful for your time. Thank you so much.

Thank you as well for the space and for everything that you all do and providing this space and the this dialogue. The Sinvergüenzismo anthology continues. Thank you so much.

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both Queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy Queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Welcome to this episode of TSV. My guest today is Arelis Figueroa who is a minister, educator, activist, and community organizer working in marginalized communities in New York City. An immigrant herself originally from the Dominican Republic, Arelis now accompanies new immigrants as lead pastor and co-founder of La Iglesia del Pueblo. She holds a Master’s of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Bienvenida to Teología Sin Vergüenza!

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Gracias. Un honor estar aquí.

Thank you for being here. I am so excited to talk to you about so many things, but we always start with the same questions, so I’m gonna start with you also. One, do you identify as a Sinvergüenza and why or why not? And also we’re an English speaking audience this time, so they may not know what una Sinvergüenza is. So will you tell us what does sinvergüenza mean to you? Like when you heard it, did you hear it as a child? Did you, what’s your experience with sinvergüenza and do you identify with that thing that you heard?

Sinvergüenza in English if we translate it right. Yeah. Literally we be without shame. Yeah. Without shame it and it can have negative connotation. Mm-hmm. Also in, in English, but I’m Sinvergüenza because, I dare to be a Christian in this world in spite of, and I dare to fight for justice, belief in justice and equity, racial justice.

Mm-hmm.

I am a Sinvergüenza, because I don’t, I don’t care to stood up and, you know, to say, to speak my mind.

Mm. Did anybody ever call you a sinvergüenza?

Oh yes.

And why were they telling you that? Was it because you were speaking your mind?

Yes, yes. And then I’m a Sinvergüenza especially, uh, when the whole queer movement and all these discussion in the church Yes. Uh, about homosexuality and not accepting homosexual homosexuality. So, when I have my process of, Hey, no, they are also Christian. Mm. Some people call it sinvergüenza Oh. Mm-hmm. Tu creciste en la iglesia. You grew up in church,

You grew up in the church, and now look at you.

And now you’re telling me that you’re believing this. What happened to you?

What happened? What happened to you? What, how did, why did you, why did you go against the like traditional position to be inclusive and accepting? What was your experience that made you go, no, these are children of God. These, this, these can people can be Christian also.

A process of listening. Ooh, empathy. Mm. And that really a process of looking more closer and reading the scripture more closely.

Mm.

And then you realize, oh my God, it’s all there.

Yes,

it Is here. What we were thinking,

I feel proud of people who identify as allies who are aligned with our community because it’s harder for you if you don’t have the lived experience in your body of knowing what feels right and what feels good and prayer and all of that stuff, I think it is harder for folks who are straight to figure out, like. How can this be good? And so the people who are willing to go on that journey and then be public about it is a really hard process and a big deal. So I’m grateful that, that the, the Holy Spirit brought you to us on this side.

I’m from the Dominican Republic

Uhhuh.

I can tell you in New York in the nineties, 1992. Oh yeah. Joined the Riverside Church. I start meeting amazing people doing amazing work.

Mm-hmm.

Almost in 90% of the people were gay and lesbian. I was like, oh my God.

We’re everywhere. We’re everywhere.

Yeah. No, this is something. This is something. So I start looking more closely because people that I love mm-hmm. People that was doing all this work.

Yes.

So my first sinvergüenza act was going to the New York Gay Parade.

Ooh, Pride. Did you have a good time? Was it surprising?

That was amazing. That was surprising. That was life changing. Mm. To be all the joy, but also the pain that this community have to endure and to learn the history here in in New York.

Will you tell us a little bit about talking about the like joy and pain, that intersection? I think in this moment, so many of our immigrant brothers and sisters and siblings are living through life that still has joy and still has all of the things that we want to do in the world. But it is a moment of spiritual terrorism for our immigrant communities. And I know you actually work with a lot of folks, so will you tell us a little bit about what life is like in New York right now in our immigrant communities? What you’re seeing and experiencing, what your ministry is. ‘Cause you also have a badass ministry that I want our listeners to hear about. Tell us a little bit more about all of that.

Yes. Very hard moment. Mm-hmm. And heartbreaking moment.

Yeah.

And I know this is the time to be with the people.

Yes.

So. One thing that we are doing is accompanying people to the immigration court, to the hearing. I have seen the solidarity of people. Even for other countries.

Yes.

And there is this guy from, an Italian photographer. Oh, he go every week. Every, every day he’s in the court documenting

Wow.

Yeah. And he wanna see, he wanna document the human side of it. Yeah. He want people to know that those people are human being.

Yes.

And then he came to the church and, you know, have picture of them in, in the church with the kids. And, and he took a picture of me that I didn’t realize and when he, when he sent me the pictures, oh, it is a little dark. When I look at closely, I was next to the elevator. Behind me there were at least six ICE agents. Oh, with this, their masks.

So scary

The only passage, and even I posted him in Facebook, I say: aunque anden valle de sombre de muerte. Psalm 23.

Yes, though I walked to the valley of the shadow of death. Woo.

Because that’s how I feel.

That’s so I can feel chills because I do think it’s the most important thing that we’re doing right now is just reminding ourselves and each other that we are human beings. And that feels like a question that I haven’t really had before now. And what’s happening in our country these days feels like what, what happened? That we forgot that we are human beings. We, they, them, us, like, we are all beings with families and lives and hearts and souls and emotions, and I think that that work of solidarity that people are doing is in part to hold onto our own humanity. That we are being trained out of to be apathetic or to be silent or to be, you know, busy with our own lives. And will you tell us a little bit about the ministry? You said we have been accompanying people. Is this the church? What is this ministry? Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, my church, my is La Iglesia del Pueblo, which is Movement Church came out of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for a more revival. Yes. And the Kairos Center.

Yes. Kairos Center.

Uh, so the Kairos Center, they start this an English group and for the poor.

Yes.

And when they ask us to be like, do the interpretation and we say, you know, no, we wanna have our own space. You know, we were very sinvergüenza also.

Yes! Naming that. We don’t want a translate, a version of your thing. We want our own thing. Yeah, why not?,

And they were amazing. They say, oh, go for it. So we started La Iglesia del Pueblo online. And then we get funding also for the Presbyterian church. They have a movement called New Worshiping Communities.

Mm-hmm.

And they were supporting Kairos and Freedom Church, and they decide supporting us too. Then came the crisis. The people call crisis, we call it opportunity. Mm-hmm. Of the immigration. We said this is, this is time, so let’s. So we start ministering the, the Latinx, the new immigrants and the newest New Yorkers.

Yes.

And that’s what we have been doing.

I love that.

So now I, having always part of the, the new sanctuary movement.

Mm-hmm.

And the sanctuary movement is called now the sanctuary coalition. So. I, so we are doing the, doing the accompanying a along with, with the new sanctuary coalition.

I love it. Now I wanna talk a little bit about you, because I am curious where your heart for justice and organizing comes from, because a lot of us. Come, or we’re first generation, we’re immigrants ourselves, whatever our status is, and we come here and we’re like, I’m coming to work. And, and that’s the focus is just working and mm-hmm. You know, maintaining our families, sending money home, that kind of work. But there’s a special brand of folks. Who their work is this call, this heart call for justice and for organizing. And you’ve been doing that for a long time in many forms, and I’m curious if you will tell us where did that come from? Like where did that heart for we need to act and we need to do some, where does that come from?

I grew up in a church. Mm-hmm. My father was a pastor.

Yeah.

And my father ministry was always a centered in social justice and social services. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s when all started. I was always involved in the, in the youth.

Mm-hmm.

Youth ministry.

You came by it honest, as we would say.

Yeah. That, that’s how it started. I remember like. You know, I remember in my, at, at some point I was almost like I start criticizing the church, like, oh, we need to be more, more, more traditional, you know. Because other people were like a more like Santos, maybe we are, you know? So I have that moment too. Yeah. But my father was always open.

So for you, like faith and justice have never been separate, it’s always been together. Faith and justice.

Yes, yes. Always. Always. So when I say I wanna be, I wanna be a pastor. And then my dad wasn’t that happy about it anyway. I went to Costa Rica once, but I went to Brazil.

Mm-hmm.

And studied liberation theology.

Amazing.

Get to know people like Oscar Cardoso, also Leonardo Boff.

Wow.

Otto Maduro. Oh, uh, so no, I, I met Lula.

Oh, wow.

Lula, Lula was a organizer.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, so Lula went and do a class for, for us.

Wow.

Ivone Gebara.

Amazing. Uh, names that people should know and go look up if they haven’t read and learned about these folks. Part of what we’re doing with Teología Sin Vergüenza this season is to try to create that bridge because a lot of folks growing up in the US and speaking primarily English, don’t have the same access, don’t even know the names, and we have to learn them later. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then, so I think this is such a resource, so I hope that folks will go and, and learn more about these folks. Yeah.

Elsa Támez.

Yes, Elsa Támez.

All these people, so when I came to to New York. I said, oh my God, well I have to stay here. Family issue. What I’m gonna do, what in my life? Okay, I gonna stay here. I have to reinvent myself. Mm. I don’t wanna go to a traditional Methodist church because I was a little disappointed with my dad and things, so I ended up at Riverside Church. Yeah. That is the very progressive and liberal church and yeah. Los caminos se fueron abriendo.

Yes, opening the way.

So God start open doors for me.

That’s great.

I went to Union Theological, I studied at New York theological and Union Theological Seminary.

But that’s not how it was supposed to be. So you come from a family that said, as a woman you’re supposed to have very traditional roles and do very traditional things. You said your father wasn’t super happy about you wanting to be a pastor.

Mm-hmm.

Will you tell us a little bit about your journey? Because I love the sinvergüenza that you were to really follow and claim your own path, both in terms of your life, your immigration, your studies, your pastor, your marriage, your motherhood. Like I just appreciate so wonderfully. I feel like there are folks who always come up to me and are like, I’m like a black sheep of my family, my church, whatever, whatever. And I don’t even know where black sheep comes from, but it is a term that I have found so many people identify sinvergüenza and black sheep, like they go together. People like I went against the flow and I did what I wasn’t supposed to, but that’s how I was able to be myself. So will you tell us just a little bit about that?

Yeah. Another thing that I’m. Also identify with the sinvergüenzas, and then when I found it, I just found you in face. It was like, a what? Oh my God. What?

I love that.

The whole, the whole discussion about people that have been hurt by the church. Yes, yes. I was like a, oh my god. Because that is more what really happened to me, you know? Mm-hmm. Not just like a, oh, not gonna be a pastor, but hurt by, by the institution that I, that was so dear to me. That was part of my life. Maybe another person would have been like a, you know, forget it. I was mad with God for a little while. That was almost a breaking point right there.

So what happened?

I didn’t, ya estaba, everything that my faith, and it was already there and, and my conviction that the way for me to live my spiritual life was in, in the Christian faith. Mm-hmm. And but that Christian faith. It was more, more than what I learned.

Mm-hmm.

And so when I start learning about we need to change our glasses

mm-hmm.

Like independent of the, the land. Yes. Your, wow. I hear about the experience of the wilderness that we mm-hmm. all have maybe have to go through sometime, go through.

So what happened for you that you, even without that encouragement to be a pastor, to be independent, what was it for you that made you say, yes, I’m gonna go study. Yes, I’m going to immigrate to the, to the US and to New York. Like, what was that for you? Because not everybody makes those choices.

Went to Brazil. After I finished in Brazil, my dad told me to come to New York so we can talk. Mm. That’s how I came to New York. He decided that it was the best thing for me to stay here.

Mm, that’s right. So does New York feel like home? ’cause it’s been 30 years. Does New York feel like home? Does the DR feel like home? What will you, what is your, what is home to you? What does that mean? What does that feel like? Where is that? Is that a place?

I always feel an immigrant here.

Yes.

I’m an immigrant. Mm-hmm. It feel home, thanks to the people that I met here. Mm-hmm. Tend to be family. People who became family, friends who became family. Yep. That is home. Home. Because of the work that we have done.

I’ve asked this question to, to our guests this season, and I think every single person has talked about how people are home. For folks who are immigrants especially, I feel like we create home with those around us. And it’s like a skill that we have. It’s like a gift that we offer, I think, to others is learning how to rebuild home and rebuild home and what that means for it to be in people and not just in a place. And I think that’s part of what the violence that’s happening right now is so intense is because people are being stolen from their families and from their communities. People who have immigrated into the US from other places, and then to be snatched unexpectedly feels like a particular kind of violence because of so many of us finding home in people.

The other thing is that, you know, that we formed communities like, so we have a big Dominican community, and then if I really wanna feel at home, I go to Washington High. It’s a music, it is the food, you know? Oh, that you, you think that you are in the DR.

You bring home with you

Yeah. We bring home with us here.

I’m gonna change the subject a little bit, which is, we talked about resurrection and I feel like you, of all people, I know you have something to say about resurrection because we talked about lived experiences of mm-hmm. Living, resurrection una y otra vez, like, over and over and over again and

Yeah.

I wonder if you will tell us a little bit about one of, one or more of your experiences of this, you know, experience of being, feeling like you’re just one foot in the grave and then the resurrection moment. Mm-hmm. I think that’s central to our faith, and I love that you embody that and claim that for yourself.

I like to speak about that because that bring the issue of mental health.

Yes.

For many years the church don’t wanna talk about it. Mm-hmm.

You have Jesus, so you should be happy and well.

Yeah. And people going through all of this, I’m feeling like that, oh, you should have to pray harder or something. And no, it’s a real, uh, problem of mental health in our. In our community and I wasn’t, I was not the exception. And also in my family, my mother have a mental health issues. And then when I have my daughter, mm-hmm. And when I became pregnant, then I have my daughter. I went through all this postpartum depression and it was very hard. It was very dark time. Then I ended up in the hospital and I remember feeling that I was, I was gone.

Yeah.

That I was, that it wasn’t any future. I feel like-

That was it.

That was it. But then God always have to wait to do things. I start telling the people at my doctor. That I was feeling that my home having been taken away from me. He brought, he said, oh, no, no, no. I’m gonna, he, I’m Jewish, so let me, let me, let me bring a Christian chaplain to talk to you.

Bless that Jewish doctor who was like, let me get somebody from your faith to talk to you.

Yeah, because I, I don’t think that the thing about feeling you, you thought that way. But it was just, you know, thanks to all the care that I received from that community when I was in that place.

What was the, what was the thing that you were feeling that you needed a Christian pastor to come and speak to?

Because the depression take you to another level of, so it was just feeling that that wasn’t me. ‘Cause you know. I wasn’t feeling myself. I need that community. I need that reminder. But also that care, and I,

If I remember correctly, you organized inside the hospital,

Inside a church? Yes.

You created a whole group in the, in the institution for your co patients.

I remember. Oh, I remember that. I, I have written some devotional

Uhhuh

For the, in for Christ. Yes. And I ask them, oh, I, I can use the computer. And then I went. I’m printed. I’m printed all that.

You’re like running a Bible study. You’re having your whole own mental health crisis, and yet you are still running a devotional Bible study group at the church. That is an organizer right there. That’s amazing.

So I did all of that. When I came out, I was like the only thing that I was saying like, oh my God, I feel that I went to hell and back to hell and back.

Yes, yes.

Really. So that’s when a friend of mine told me that’s why we believe in resurrection.

That’s right. It’s not just Jesus.

Oh my God. Yeah, it So, yeah, that is, that’s why we believe in resurrection. That was a period of death. But now you came to light again.

Mm-hmm. That’s right. We create the resurrection. We make it happen. Yeah.

We make it happen. The- accompany those people at this moment of their life more vulnerable. And, and the beauty right now is that we saw so many people from all walk of life accompany them. We have a lot of people, not just Latinx.

And we protect us. We keep us safe. I think that’s one of the messages that our people need to hear right now. I’m curious, you are working so directly accompanying immigrant families and being part of that same immigrant community. What are some of the things, theologically, you think that we need to be hearing or we need to be confessing, or we need to be preaching. What is the good news in this moment? What do you, what do you, what advice do you have for others who are just starting to come into their consciousness and awareness around what’s going on and how this intersects with Christianity and, and our theology? What, what words do you have for us?

Yeah, we were talking about love. If you say that you love God that they haven’t, haven’t seen mm-hmm. But hate your brother and sisters that live with you, that you see.

Yes. Your neighbors.

That’s a liar. Yes. Your neighbor. So

That is a liar.

Love your neighbor. And em- empathy. You know, be, be with the people in this moment. And remember, especially for the immigrant, all those verses in the Bible, they talk about protection of the immigrant love the foreigner. Prevention. You know, when you leave something where you are, you know, harvest at least something for the people, for the poor.

That’s right. There’s literally like thousands and thousands of verses about that.

About that.

Yes. It’s hard to believe for me how anyone could somehow make the current political situation of terrorism against our immigrant communities match with Christianity, especially because Jesus and Mary were immigrants and there was so much mandate around hospitality and welcome and care. I, I don’t quite understand how anyone who identifies as Christian could maintain a political position that is indifferent or apathetic to what we’re seeing, the violence on the streets every day. And I wonder what keeps folks from standing in that gap of justice. I don’t, I don’t know what it is, but I wonder what keeps Christians clinging to their faith in private, but not behaving as Christians in public.

The, the other thing that we are learning right now that is so true is the Christian nationalism. Many people don’t understand what it is still. That I didn’t know what it was when I came. Christian nationalism is no religion, it’s politics, and is how people are using. The faith to preach hate and divide us. That’s how people can justify the unjustified.

We talk at Soulforce we talk about Christian supremacy and white Christian supremacy, which is like the foundations from colonization way, way, way back where Christianity got merged first with the Roman Empire and then European empires and that colonizing religion that laid the groundwork that somehow made some of us more human and some of us less human. And therefore, like, created that divide in a way that is totally against Christianity in the Bible. Like literally we’re all supposed to be an equal standing before God. So I think Christian nationalism is this current moments version of that supremacy culture.

Is hard to talk about it, but it’s liberating also because when we. The Bible say when we, you, you know the truth and the truth will make you free.

Yeah. I think that’s also, we’re taught in a lot of Christian spaces to believe that the bad things that happened to us are because of something that we did, or God is mad with us, or mm-hmm. This is how it’s supposed to be, and so that creates an orientation of just accepting whatever we get as like, well. It’s, that’s my cross to bear. And I think the kind of liberation theology and the work of Freedom Church and what you’re doing is a really important ministry because it shows a different version of Christianity that for folks who weren’t brought up in Liberation Theology, whether Black Liberation Theology or Latin American Liberation Theology, mujerista womanist theology. We have to learn that later if that wasn’t the religion we were given as children. And so having those examples of different ways to be in the faith and be Christian, but also be centered on justice and not just passively accepting what’s happening to us as though God did it, but be like, that’s not God. Those are principalities. That’s not Christianity. We claim a different faith and we claim a different orientation of the divine. I think it’s just. So, so, so important.

We are in that moment of calling things out. We are now fighting to have the 10 amendment at the school. Mm-hmm. Great. And then you go and vote against giving the student. Lunch.

Lunch.

So those are now giving us us. All those teaching moment.

I think we have a role to play as faith leaders, and part of that is being vulnerable and sharing our own journeys. I think to go back a little bit to what you were saying around your own dark night of the soul and your resurrection process, sometimes even just talking about things changes culture, like talking about mental health as a health issue and it doesn’t, isn’t something that you pray away or sing away, it doesn’t make you less of a Christian. And I think a lot of our listeners need to hear that, that if you are going through depression, if you are having some other sort of emotional, spiritual, psychological crisis, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that God has abandoned you. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t a person of faith because of your sexuality, because of your gender. Mm-hmm. Because of your life circumstances, whatever those things are. That doesn’t make you less of a Christian. That just is about mental health. And while faith can help, absolutely. There’s a whole mental health guild full of people and different areas of study that can support, and so bringing awareness to that I just think is like, it’s brave and it’s critically important because it makes sense that we respond to moments like these with crisis. Because it is a crisis moment. It’s a normal reaction to terrorism, to be anxious, to be depressed, to be scared. That doesn’t make you less of a Christian

Crisis and, and Kairos moment. Is this, this moment when something is gonna happen and something is going to change because what is here is it’s no longer gonna serve us. But it is a possibility of a new resurrection. A new world is possible, and this is the moment, and this is something that we are, those teaching moment come many times now with the Latinx community. People coming from Venezuela. Colombia. These other countries and coming with the idea that they were coming to the Promised Land.

The American dream.

The American dream, and look now what happened. Everything that we have in this country, having fight, nothing was given to us. Having the work of the people, the organizing. So don’t believe that lie that, Oh, they are giving you, they’re giving all those thing because there’s, because they’re so good. If people are, if Black people are free, it was a fight then with the women. So all, all that I, I have been talking with people before all this mm-hmm. When they’re, now we are seeing this now in, in real time. Yes. And it, it is hard. It’s hard ’cause it’s now people feel really like el piso se ha movido.

Right, that those narratives, that so much of what our cultural myths are about the US those are gone. Like those are no longer true. And so what do we do in this moment?

What do we do?

We organize.

We organize, organize, organize.

That’s right.

And. That’s, we always say in, in the campaign, this is not about left and right. It’s about right or wrong.

That’s right.

And it is hard that people have to learn that way. It is like I learning the hard way.

Mm-hmm.

But it is good when now they’re seeing that another world is possible and that they have people who willing to, to walk with them. And the other thing that is happening is that people come to us to, la iglesia, and I have the, we did a form mm-hmm. For people to let us know when they have court. Yeah. And we prepare the, the team that’s gonna accompany them. So as you can imagine, people are sharing this form with everybody. So we got to come with people that I just meet that day. Yeah. Or I met because they fill out the form. And many of them, they’re so grateful and they have look at my eyes and telling me that people in the churches that they go to, nobody come with them. They don’t talk about this, and they just keep praying and singing, and don’t accompany them in this moment. Don’t tell them what to do at this moment.

What is the dream? What is the like when you think of new creation, particularly from your lens of sinvergüenza, of faith, of justice. When you talk about this new, this other world that’s possible, I would say that’s like new creation that we’re called to participate in. What is the dream vision? What is that that we are looking toward? When you imagine that? Because sometimes I think. We have to do the work of prophetic imagination toward what is possible. Mm-hmm. What is that? What is that horizon line? What, what is that for you? Where do you see God in that? Where do you see new creation?

One, the reason I join and stay with the Poor People’s Campaign, that analysis that we do about how all those issues or problems are interconnected and that we are all connected. And then, we have a song that say, my liberation is your liberation. And your liberation is my liberation.

Amen.

So the dream is when we understand that, that nobody is free until everyone is free. So that’s the dream. And to break with this so individualistic society and now we are seeing there’s gonna be people, saving people.

And I think it’s possible, you know the barriers to why we might wanna stay in our own little casita over here, and you stay over there. Those, those reasons are quickly disappearing. So the possibility of being together feels more and more realistic because we are all suffering in our own ways. Some of us sooner, some of us later, but we’re in the same sinking boat together. So it feels like, all right, this is the time people, let’s get it together. Well, we always end, I can’t believe we’ve been here already an hour, but I would love to end with the same question we always end with, which is, who are your ancestors, whether they’re thinkers or family or religious icons? Who are those cloud of witnesses that you come to again and again in your prayer life, in your quiet time to help you feel renewed and remind you who you are?

The first one is Doña Tina, which is my grandmother. Mm. That we always call her the first liberated woman in the Dominican Republic. Like she was so amazing woman and she was so like herself and her faith, and she lead the way. Yes. And raise a, a amazing family and love my grandfather.

Mm-hmm.

And that was like a very, not very common to see a person at that time when you was see that the woman was, that she was the, the, you know, she was the one who, who was leading Yes. And she was stronger, So. Doña Tina is the first one. Then in the liberation movement in the Dominican Republic, there was this woman, Mamá Tingó who fight for the land, and also because was a Black woman a campesina, the Dominican Republic with we have that racial issues and all know that. So always thinking, Mamá Tingó

Mm-hmm.

Uh, give me the land below to those who work the land. Amen. And she was killed defending her land. Her land. Hmm. And then there was this woman that I met and she’s an icon now. She’s, ’cause she was a Haitian Dominican woman, Sonia Pierre. And she fight so much for the right of, of Dominican, Haitian. And this is an issue that we, I don’t know when we are gonna resolve it, but I have this hope that some someday we are going to, to do right to our neighbors, the, the Haitians. Now here, I that I would say that, but also. Being in this country for so many years and learn about the whole civil right movement, Fannie Lou Hamer. Hmm. And Martin Luther King. But I didn’t know about Malcolm X.

Mm-hmm.

And when I was able to put together those two, that also was, you know, change my life in many ways. Being how, how those forces was, they’re necessary.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I can mention more and more, but I, I stayed with those. But yeah, I stayed with my grandmother and Doña Tina. And we were just thinking about that and yesterday about the calling out our ancestors in a meeting that, that I was having with, with the Poor People’s Campaign and with Kairos yesterday. And I’m glad that, that you bring that out because as a Protestant, this is something that we didn’t do well.

Yay.

I don’t, Por eso porque que nosotros entendemos a olvidar. Pero no. Ellos están, están aquí.

And recuperating that ancestral like honoring because they are in us. I feel like you’re so right that that’s been taken away from so many of us in the Protestant traditions, like we’ve been robbed of that remembrance, rituals, honors because that also makes us stronger when we remember who we come from. And the fights that they went through, and that those lessons and those memories and those resilience strategies and resistance strategies flow through our DNA through our cultural generational experience. Not just the trauma, but also that power and knowledge. Thank you for blessing us with your voice, with your stories, with your ministry. Thank you for being a blessing to our people, and thank you for being a Sinvergüenza.

Thank you for inviting me. Oh my god, honor.

No, the Honor is, is mine and ours. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy, queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Welcome to this week’s episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Buckle up and get ready. ’cause today I have the pleasure of speaking with Jessica Vasquez Torres. She’s a 1.5 generation queer Latina of Puerto Rican descent, who’s been shaped by 30 years of living and working in the southern and Midwestern United States. Based in Moo-wak-ma Oooo-lone tribal land, most commonly known as Oakland, California, she brings over 20 years of experience organizing for racial justice with a particular focus and expertise in religious institutions. Her lived experience, religious formation, and intersectional lens fuel, a beautiful and powerful conversation on identity diaspora, home, and ultimately transformation and healing. I can’t wait. Hi, beloved, welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza.

Thank you. Thank you. It’s good to be here.

I’m so glad that you are spending some time with us today. We always start at the same place, so let’s just jump right in. Do you identify as una persona sinvergüenza, yes or no, and why or why not? And, because the season is in English, I would love for you to give a little bit of intro. What does sinvergüenza mean to you? Do, what experiences do you have with that word? Uh, tell us a little bit about yourself.

So sinvergüenza to me will always be connected to my uncle Elias, who, um, who would, like, whenever he would greet you, he would give you his term of endearment for you. In his case, my term, his term of endearment for me was la gordita. And then he would be like, he would be like, ah, you’re such a sinvergüenza. Right, you’re so smart. You’re like, so like shameless in a, in a way of sort of signifying you do not lack in pride. And so I have this, my relationship with this term in so many ways really. It’s connected to him in a lot of ways. Mm. Certainly in my family, sinvergüenza meant many things. It meant, ah, you sinvergüenza like you have no shame about this thing that you did, and you’re standing there so prideful. My mom, uh, uses sinvergüenza a lot with like her pets. When her pets do something really funny and just like, ah, look at the sinvergüenza like, ha ha ha. They’re so funny. They’re so cute. I have associations with that term that are about someone that’s sitting strong and without shame in something that they’ve done. And I, I may not agree with the thing that they’ve done. Like it is not a question of whether do I have agreement or disagreement about it, but I am denoting that what you are experiencing relative to that word, is connected to some form of shamelessness. Mm-hmm. And that, that shamelessness can be a thing you achieve, I have achieved shamelessness. I am standing without shame in a, in a stance of like strength. Mm-hmm. Um, and it could be, um, interpreted as I have done something and I have transgressed something and I am not shamed. I will not be shamed. And I have no shame in my transgression. I I may be facing consequences because of that transgression, but I am standing without shame in the, in the, in front of that transgression. So I have all these like wonderful associations of, of I think a complex term, at least in my Puerto Rican family. Yeah. Uh, and so when I think about it that way, I certainly do think myself as someone that strives to be, uh, sinvergüenza, I. I use the word strive. I don’t wanna say yes or no because I’m also a person, like born in this world, raised in this world in a, you know, a, a person who identifies as a female, a person with all kinds of socially imposed and family imposed forms of shame around all kinds of things. And so I think I am a person that’s striving to, to live into that meaning that I, that I got from my family of being a person that stands on the other side of shame, uh, that stands strong in the other side of shame.

I love it. I love it. Now, the first time that we talked, I’m gonna go deep and then we may need to circle down.

Go for it.

Yeah. Because the first time you and I spoke. I was like, got teary because we started talking about home and what it means to be in diaspora and you were telling me a lot about coming from island people and what that meant from you, like what that meant for you growing up, and also being a person who has moved around a lot in your adult life. And so will you tell me a little bit about what home means and what that trajectory has meant for you of moving from place to place or, or what feels like home?

I wanna start that by something, I didn’t, we didn’t talk about the the first time because since you and I talked, I finished reading a book called Olga Dies Dreaming. Which is a diasporic novel and I cannot think of the name of the writer. Xóchitl. I’ll think of Xóchitl’s last name, But, but in Olga Dies Dreaming. I told my cousin I was reading it, who lives in Puerto Rico, and my cousin said, I hated that book. Right. And I was like, oh, interesting. Yeah. And so as I, so I read it with that sense that my cousin who lives in Puerto Rico really didn’t like this book. Yeah. And I am like, but this book will won awards. Like, how do you not like this book? When I got to the end of this book, I, I wrote her and I said, I understand why you didn’t like this book. I get it now because this is a book written in the diaspora for the diaspora. Because fundamentally that book is about finding home.

Yeah.

And it’s about finding home in yourself. It’s about finding home in your community. It’s about finding home in your people. Yeah. And it’s also about rediscovering a home that lived in your imagination, that in this book, in Olga Dies Dreaming, the character is Puerto Rican from New York. And so her idea of what Puerto Rico home is

Yeah.

And what Puerto Rico actually was were two very different things, right? Yes. And, and I think that when I, so I was talking to my cousin about this and my cousin was like, that’s it. I am reading the book as someone that’s never left home.

Yes.

And you are reading a book as someone who was taken from home. Yes. Whose family made a decision to leave home and now are thinking about your place in the world in relationship to that geography that is home to you, but the further you are away from it, the, the more distanced it becomes. So it becomes a little romantic and illusory.

Yes.

As you move away. So I, I think that that’s a little bit about how I think about home these days. I, I have in fact moved a lot. And somewhere along the way I, I had to, I had to figure out that if I wasn’t willing to make home where I went, where I lived, I was never gonna stop missing home. And maybe it was, maybe for me, it was the realization that, I don’t know, that maybe the, the longer I stayed outside of Puerto Rico, the further that home became to me. Yeah. Right. That I couldn’t, that I, I, I didn’t feel like we just go back. That my mom and my dad were in the states, that my sister was in the states, that living them behind didn’t feel like a, a decision I wanted to make. And then I met my spouse and then like, now I had this other person that I wasn’t gonna move to Puerto Rico and so home became a further and further thing in terms of like a place to call home.

Yeah.

And um, and I think that for me then it became about making home where I went and learning how to, how does one make home through story, through ritual, through people, through community. I think that the place that that clicked for me was really living in Indianapolis. It was the furthest I’ve been from Puerto Rico. It’s the furthest I’ve in from my family and my entire life. It’s the furthest I lived by myself, alone. Mm-hmm. In a place where I didn’t really know anyone. And it was the furthest I’ve ever been from a Puerto Rican community. There were not really that many Puerto Ricans in Indianapolis when I was living there. And I remember looking around. And seeing, okay, who are the other people? Like, okay, so I, I’m not gonna find Puerto Rican-ness here. So what is home? How do I connect to home? And it was like, oh, well, home is, home is rice, home is beans. Home is music. Yes, home is language. Home is, home is forms of corn. Where am I? Let’s go looking. Let’s, who are the people who have the closest approximation to this?

Yes.

And then, and then it was Guatemalans and Mexicans in Indianapolis. And then it was like, okay, Jessica, how are you connected to these people? What binds you to them? Where do you find your points of connection? I think for me, that required dismantling ideas. About myself as a person from the Caribbean, about them as persons from Central America and Latin America, broadly speaking. It meant cutting through some of the ways that the US pits us against each other. So home was also about discovering people.

Yes.

That I have been separated from. Mm-hmm. Uh, discovering something about our, what bound us to each other, uh, beyond just food and language.

Yes.

Um, and then, and then I think that then created for me this meaning of home that is grounded in community. Yes. That wherever, wherever the community I’m cultivating is that I am making home. So home is not a static place. Home is this dynamic, constant making, world building project of saying, I am here. So who is my home here?

Yes.

Like, and where are the, where are the degrees of home that I have? Like, so how does home become the people I live with? In the most granular, like, yes, explicit place, my spouse, my pet, my dog. How is home my family? How is home my cousins and my second cousins and my third cousins and my cousins via marriage? And how is home the people I’ve collected and that have gathered with me and that I have gathered with along the way? Home is like the people I’ve met in every city I’ve ever lived into where I found a way to make home. Like home is, home is the collection of all of those stories collapsed into each other. So that there comes a point in which I can feel at home wherever I go. While also, also, I think, and maybe this is a function of getting older, I’m gonna be honest. Also consistently and at times really longing the home that I left behind.

Mm-hmm.

And that, and that both of those things are true at the same time, that I am at home in all of these ways among all of these people. Uh, people that aren’t just Latinos. People who are Japanese, through my spouse, that are Jewish. All of this ever-growing mass of humanity that make me home and that make my home, yes, my home. But also in the midst of all of that, also never really quite reconciling that I’m far away from home. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s the tension between those two things that’s also home, right? Like it is that in, in Spanish there’s a word called, there’s a word called añoranza. And I, I remember writing a long time ago, like when I wrote up a sermon, I used to preach, uh, and I wrote a sermon in which I talked about, uh, the limitations of the English language. To describe, to describe what it means to miss something.

Yes.

And that, and that for me, the word añoranza is, it’s not just that I miss something that. It it’s to long for .

Yes.

It is to is to feel called to. It’s to be, is to have a part of your being that is never quite fulfilled and never quite settled and never quite satisfied. That like gets activated with a song. Mm-hmm. Like gets activated with a smell. And so to me, home these days is both this expansive, beautiful, gathered through geography, through relationship, through time, community of relationships that are, are meaningful and important and where I find myself deeply grounded, and it is that place that can never quite be fulfilled. That place that is also pulling me and calling me and mm-hmm. It’s both Puerto Rico and it’s also this reality that I live, that I have carved for myself.

I wonder if that’s something about being in diaspora or part of the experience of either being an immigrant or being in a family of immigrants or a community in diaspora that, that I feel like the narrative is once we are fully assimilated we will be fully American, quote unquote, and then the rest of it will kind of fall away. And I think sometimes we don’t teach our children our indigenous and native and Spanish, colonized though it may be, languages with this intention of trying to belong and fit in. Um, but I do think there’s something that’s no less. American to use that phrase mm-hmm. By holding both of those. Ni de aquí ni de allá Yeah. Like I, I long for this place that I, for some of us have never been mm-hmm. But know it in my bones and know it, my family know it in the longings of my family and the generations before me. And it’s holding. It’s that both, it’s a very theological Right. Both and kind of thinking Yeah. Of like, we actually can be fully here and never over it being displaced, both physically and spiritually from the billions of our ancestors. Yeah.

Oh no, I, I, yes. I think that the diasporic experience, the experience of being in diaspora is it, it is a liminal to use a, a big word. Mm-hmm. Is a, is a liminal experience. It is, it is the experience of living in an in-between space. Uh, yeah. Because you. Like in my case, I’m a 1.5 generation like sociologically. People think of people like me as 1.5 generation. I lived to Puerto Rico till I was 15. I’m now 52. So I have lived right more than two thirds of my life here. But what happens to a young person by the age of 15 is so much of you are fully formed. Yes. And so when I think of my life, I think of it as so much of my life feels like it’s lived in liminality, it’s lived in this place that is neither here nor there. There are days that I’m only thinking English, never utter a single Spanish thought or word all day long. And yet something happens, a smell, a call, and it just is it, it comes at you, it’s activated. And if like you feel it in your body, you relax. Yes. Your ways of being are different. You use your hands differently, breathing, so there’s a, you’re breathing differently. There is something about the the diasporic experience. That, that, that is generationally bound, that my diaspora experience as a 1.5 generation is different than my nibling and my niece’s experience. Yeah. Of being diasporic people is different than my mom who was in her forties when she moved and, and that it is displaced where you are neither here nor there, and that you make a commitment to place. I think of my parents as people who built an island in a zip code. My parents have lived in the same zip code Okay. For the entire time that we’ve lived in the United States.

Wow.

They have moved four times. Okay. In a three mile radius. Right. They have made. Literally an island. Yes. In a zip code. And they have, they operate like island people. They go to the same grocery store inside the bounds of their island. Their church is inside the bounds of their island. The gas station, the veterinary for the dogs, the place where they get their coffee, the place where they get the bread, the place where they put their gas. It’s within the bounds of the island.

The gas.

Yeah. There’s, yeah. It’s not like when I go home and I tell mom, well, I went shopping here, and she’s like, where is that? And I’m like, it’s just right over there. She’s like, I’ve never seen that. Well, because you never live. You never, you never get out of this place. They build an island in a zip code. Yeah. And there’s something really beautiful about that. Mm-hmm. Like, they know so many people there. They know all of their neighbors. They like can tell me tremendous intimate stories about these people. People show up in my parents’ house and, and do things. There’s like this, the guy that mows the lawn, he mows the lawn for groceries. Like there’s all these like island exchange and relational transactions that are happening, which are just incredibly rare in the United States or unless more like I, I think they are true in places like Appalachia. Mm-hmm. They’re true in poor and rural communities. They can be true in certain urban cities, but by and large we are- that’s not a reality in the United States. And I’ve watched my parents build themselves an island.

Yeah.

Because they’re island people in their liminal diasporic experience, yes. They recreated an island. Wow. And they, they have inhabited the space for almost 40 years. Wow. And so I, I think that your sense that part of the experience of being diasporic people where home is both a place that we make and we don’t always make it ’cause we want to, sometimes we make it ’cause we don’t have a choice. Yep. Sometimes we make it ’cause we got pulled or pushed by colonialism and economics and war and persecution. Yeah. Uh, or our parents needed to move and we got there dragged along, or someone sent us to protect us. We, one of the projects I think of being diasporic people, whether we know it or not, it’s, it’s building home while also continuously having this core, this pull, this thing that’s just on the other side. Like if the liminal of space is in between and that’s where you inhabit, it’s like it’s just on the other side of that space and you have a push and a pull. Mm-hmm. You are pulled into this world, what you described as as assimilation. You’re pulled into the, the economics of surviving, of getting a job, of getting an education, of getting ahead. Right. That pulls you through the liminal place. But there’s a pull that is always there. It’s just never lets it go. It may be thin mm-hmm. Depending on your generation. But when you land. If you get to go back. When you see a person from your town. When, when someone tells you a story, like it just grabs you and it sends you back there. Yes. To me, that’s what it feels like to be in the active project of home building. Mm-hmm. Um, I don’t think it’s ever settled. It’s it’s world building.

Yes. Oh, I love that feeling of world building because I come from a generation of, I was born here in the US and I was raised in Appalachia. So very much that network, like you were talking about. But not being in place and in community with other people from where I was from, the longing didn’t go away. Like, I think there could be this aspiration that eventually you just are where you are, who you are, now you’re quote unquote American, and, and it feels right. But I think there’s also generational hurt and longing and missing and identity that gets passed down in this way of like, I feel like I’m spending most of my adult life trying to bridge back to home, to ancestors, to that kind of place. But I feel like, and you can tell me if you have a different experience, I feel like we don’t talk about diaspora like as a concept as much as we should. Like we have, I hear nostalgia where people talk about, you know, where they’re from or their family traditions or things like that, or pride in being from the country that you’re from. But the talking about the spiritual wound or the generational experience of being from a people who left. Or were forced or were trafficked. That work, I feel like we don’t talk about enough in like communities that come from Latin America and the Caribbean. I’m, is that your experience also?

We certainly, we don’t use the word. I I think it’s really interesting. I, I, I, as I’m hearing you say that, I’m sitting here thinking about this one friend I have, whose name is Juan. And Juan and I have what, like, I, I think of them as diasporic summits. We, I just, I like, I’ll just get a text mess- a text message that says it’s time for a check-in. That’s it, that’s all the text message says. And then we’ll like, figure out how to get on the phone. And we both have like one hour. And so it’s like us checking in, like, are you seeing what I’m seeing? Like, are you noticing what I’m noticing? We start with like, what’s happening in the US? Like, oh my God, what’s going on? And then at some point we inevitably end up in Puerto Rico. And then we start like having this conversation about the place that we both feel pulled toward. If that home is liminal, Puerto Rico is our, like our pullback. Our like, it’s both our grounding and our longing and like the thing that feels beyond our grasp. And we’re both looking at it, but we’re looking at it with this clear sense that what we are seeing is a diasporic lens. Mm. At some point in our conversation, we’re like having a thousand opinions, right? We don’t live there. Uh, but we have a thousand opinions about what’s happening, what’s going on, what is wrong with people, and then we have to say out loud. But that’s the thing about being in the diaspora.

Yeah.

You, you see something different, but you’re also not seeing clearly because you’re not there either. And I think that, that, I wish we talked about it more.

Me too.

Well, and lemme say I wish we talked about it more because I think I. I think that what made me navigate the diasporic experience as a teenager early on in my life, probably well into my twenties in so many ways, was like, was religious life. Like in my case it was a Puerto Rican community at church. And so it like kept, it kept me sort of like, oh yeah, this is happening over here, but you, I have a place to touch.

Yea

And this place that I touch, it’s like if I touch it, if I can put my finger in it, I am relocated. Mm-hmm. I now have a sense of my geography all over again.

Yes.

And I go away and now, and here’s the problem, here’s the beauty of that. Yeah. That there was a place I could touch.

Yes.

Here’s the challenge of that.

Yeah.

Is that because we never talked about, not only did we not talk about diaspora. Yeah. We didn’t also, in that conversation, talk about diaspora that is pushed on us by colonialism, by economic forces, by. By the ways that, um, lack of sovereignty, demands, mobility, demands that you get out. Right by the push and pull of co-, of colonial capitalism. My touching here isn’t making things clear either. Mm-hmm. So I’m touching, I’m relocated. I feel like I’m connected, but, but I am also not, I’m also getting a version of a kind of religiosity that isn’t helping me resist some of the pulls towards abandoning of myself.

Yes, yes.

And that it would take a long time for me to figure out that I needed to still have a touch, but I needed to have a touch that was much more critical than just being satisfied with giving me a sense of home. That I needed to challenge that also, it couldn’t just be uncritical, touching regrounding and then. Right. Something needed to give.

Yeah, I, that makes me think about how many queer and trans people I know who have that same experience of church being this refuge, particularly in diaspora. That is the container of language. That is the container of culture, that is the container of after church food and meals and how we are connected to back home that feels so deeply like home. And that theology that was nor- that was used to colonize our home places and brought back here with us to this country. How that then requires us to split ourselves so that we can hold onto that place of home, that touchpoint, as you were saying. But only when we leave our queerness, our transness, our feminism, whatever that is, at the door and that kind of splitting feels like the colonizing project. And so I wonder, will you talk about, is that what you also see? Is that what you mean when you’re talking about that work?

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. Let me be clear. Yeah. I don’t begrudge people the ways that they hold onto that. Yeah. Because life in the United States can be an absolute devastating thing. Yes. For so many people. You know, I think about people that get pulled through the co the circumstances of, of the injustice of life and the world that humans create. Yes. Who never wanted to leave home, who didn’t have a choice to live home. Who, who, i’m just living behind family and friends. They’re living behind purpose. Career. Yes. Work that has meaning to do-

Hope.

To hope, a sense of possibility, a commitment to a community, and then they land in a place where people don’t see you, think you’re disposable. So like I get, and do not begrudge that people need a place. Yes. That gives them language and ritual and narrative. However uncritical it is. Yes. But that in the midst of that devastation. Yep. Yes. There is a place to go. There is a place.

People ask us like, why don’t you just leave if they treat you that bad or if they don’t accept.

And it’s, it’s not that simple.

Right? It’s not that simple. Yes, yes. Thousand percent. Yes. Not simple. I don’t judge anybody who stays .

I mean, I don’t either. Right? Like, and I don’t even begrudge the people that come up with these sophisticated, like, negotiations. I did it for a really long time.

Yeah.

Where i’d be like, okay, I’m just gonna do this thing over here. I’m gonna go sing my songs. Yeah. And then I’m gonna go and I’m gonna go to the other church. Yeah. So I can detox a little bit from all the bad theology. Right. Like I would, I would do two services. Okay. Like the service with my people. Yeah. And then I would go to the white church. I would go to the white progressive church with all the, all the educated people that I, theologically aligned with. And I remember in Chicago because, like let me tell you the story, but I remember in Chicago we used to go to the Filipino community and we loved going there. Oh my God. It felt, I, I feel very much at home among Filipino people because of our shared colonial history.

That’s right. Island people, colonizer, island people.

Island people colonized by the same people, right? Like, you know, it’s like we, like we and the Filipinos we’re like this, right? We’re like, we’re like, we’re like shared history. But the theology, Lord have mercy. I would go and I was like, but there’s gonna be food afterwards. And these people are amazing and I love them. And then the minute that the pastor would start speaking, I would lift up the Bible and I would open the first chapter of Mark. And while he was like saying whatever, I’m, I’m just gonna read the gospel of Mark. It’s my favorite gospel.

Mine too!

I’m just gonna read the gospel, Mark. I’m gonna, I’m gonna counter this noise by reading this.

Yes.

As a way of remaining, as a way of holding onto this little piece of a thing that so matters. Yes. So anyways I don’t begrudge it. I have been there. I do it. Yep. I’m also clear that there is something really deeply problematic, it’s sad, it’s destructive. That Christian theology, that Christian faith, given its incredible colonial history in Latin America and the Caribbean, isn’t for so many of us, isn’t a place that gives us a pathway to a sense of freedom and wholeness and to the possibility of home building and world building. That instead what it does is that it has us attached to forms of morality and control. And, and I get it. If you’re feeling out of control, having a a, a faith that is all about control. Where, where yes. You know, where the deity is has an answer for everything, may feel like a place of power. Yeah. And I think it makes us vulnerable. I think it makes us, yeah. I think it hurts us. I think that it doesn’t provide us with a way to critically fight for our own liberation. It. And, and that is, that is just, it’s such a place of struggle for me because I, yes. These people, these communities of faith also, you know, they hold the wounded, they provide care for the sick. They feed people, they show up with people, they are there for them in community and do it in a way that is also creating like poison pills. For people like me, for people who are queer, people who are trans, for people who are young, who just don’t see the, the exchange of that. Yeah. Isn’t always liberatory and I, it’s a, it’s a deep place of struggle because I, yeah. So it creates a home that’s built in a form of control and conformity.

Yes.

That is not healthy. It’s a, it’s a bit of a toxic home.

Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s the antithesis of life abundant for so many of us in, in any form, anybody who doesn’t conform. Part of the work that we do at Soulforce, and I know that you do in your work, and I’d love to hear more about it, is trying to do this disentanglement from the colonizing project and like what we believe. Because we were given this theology usually at the tip of a sword or a tip of a gun, and like how we exist apart from that, beyond that, how we develop spirituality. And one of the things that I think is really important to talk about when we’re having a conversation about Puerto Rico in particular is its place as a US colony, because oftentimes we’re talking to folks in Latin America, are from places in Latin America, that have a whole variety of relationships with the United States, but there’s a very particular history, particularly with the Christian Church, with like lots of Protestant denominations. I feel like one of the most remarkable aha moments for me that I just didn’t know I was just ignorant about for so long, was that map of Puerto Rico where they di- like, literally the church, Protestant church leaders, like divided the map and it’s like, here is the Presbyterians. Yeah. And even people like the Quakers and the Disciples, like almost all of the Protestant denominations were like there and they have their little section of the map. And my experience is like even now. Like even now, 2025, if you go to those places on the map, the majority of churches and the majority of people will still belong to that specific Protestant denomination that were assigned to. Like, to, like, they didn’t say colonize, they said like, um, civilize. Right? Yeah. So will you tell us a little bit about that for folks who are new to the conversation?

Oh, please. Lemme tell you, lemme tell you about it. Yes. Um, so I, I wanna start by saying that one of my, one of my favorite books, I wanna go back to this map, but one of the books that I read called How to Hide an Empire. And so, so in How To Hide of Empire. Immerwahr, who Is an historian, he studied US history. He opens the book by saying he’s in the Philippines. He is going up an escalator in the airport, in the Philippines looking around going like, there’s an awful lot of words here in English. What is this about? And so he’s like, there for a symposium or something on American history, like brand new minted American historian PhD. Quickly realizing Uhhuh that somehow in his entire trajectory, yes, somehow he missed this entire little business of the Philippines being a possession of the United States. As he begins to interrogate sort of his own shaping, he’s like, how? How can I be a historian of the United States of any repute if I don’t know that this was a territory of the US? Then what else I don’t know? And so he begins to try and piece together, what else don’t I know? And suddenly where he lands is this beginning to sort of discover the way that the United States so effectively-

Yeah.

So effectively hid its empire while preaching to the world and engaging in military conflicts designed to end empires. Yes. And this is the irony of Puerto Rico, right? Yes. That Puerto Rico was a part of an empire. Yes. The Spanish Empire, right? Yes. We were a colony of Spain from 1493 until 1898, just like the Philippines, FYI. And Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and the part of Dominican Republic that is not Haiti, the, historically known as Hispaniola. Mm-hmm. And, and all other kinds of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. And the United States decides that it’s going to declare its sphere of influence over the entire Western hemisphere. And so it’s gonna go to work and it’s gonna engage military conflict designed to essentially remove all European empires from its sphere of influence, right?

Yes.

In order to liberate and to democratize them. By creating a European empire, a so-called Pax Americana, that it will impose upon the world. Yes. And so we Puerto Rico are fighting for our own independence from Spain and comes to the United States. Oh, Spanish American War. Oh, we’re gonna kick Spain out of this part of the world. And when people in all kinds of places in Cuba and the Dominican Republic in all kinds of Latin American nations are thinking the Spanish are gone, we get to be self determinant people. The United States said, oh, not so fast. Not so fast my friends, because we actually believe that you have, uh, import. You are an important part of our new world influence. And so we are gonna liberate you by imposing upon you, um, a kind of democratizing project. Uh, a civili, a civilizing and democratizing project. And in order to help with that, we are gonna impose not religion because Puerto Rico had been a colony of a Catholic Christian nation for, at that point, four hundred years. We are gonna impose Protestant American Christianity upon you and just map that you referred to. That there would be a gathering of all of the missionary agencies of all of the, what we call today, the historical white churches of the United States. And they would literally put up a map and create territories and assign each of those lands. So I was Disciples of Christ, that’s the territory I lived in. Mm-hmm. Um, and they would go at that, like with zealousness, we’re gonna go recruit people, we’re gonna go start churches, we’re gonna go undermine Catholicism. And we’re gonna do it not by selling them Christianity, because we were already Christian. We are gonna do it by selling them middle classness. We’re gonna do it by, by integrating ideas of the American middle class: upward mobility, education. a kind of separation of politics from religion. Uh, forms of sobriety, forms of like public morality. Yes. We’re gonna, we’re gonna invest in hospitals. We’re gonna invest in like housing projects and building that are going to co-mingle. Christianity with a kind of American building project.

Yes.

And there is something about that, that will have a real impact. I mean, the, the status of life in Puerto Rico would significantly increase. Like my family, my grandparents had sixth grade and I think it was sixth grade and fourth grade educations, all of their children were graduated from college.

Wow.

Uh, their eight children, all of my cousins, by and large, went to college. Most of us have master’s degrees. Many of us have second master’s or graduate degrees, postgraduate degrees. You literally can see in one family the impact of this alignment. Right. And, and you can also see, in one family, and in many families the impact of the training for the Colonial project. And how do we in 2025 as that colonial project has traveled. Through movement, through mobility, through displacement, through push and pull economics. Through, the impact of disaster after disaster, after disaster, ecological and structural disaster upon the island of Puerto Rico. Maria, Irma. That constant battle with a board of, uh, overseers that won’t let the people have self-determination. As people have moved, these ideas, these religious ideas have moved with them. Mm-hmm. And so now we find ourselves right in the diasporic Puerto Rican communities encountering multiple generations of diasporas.

Yes.

Right. ’cause then each of these communities, there’s a diaspora meeting them. And the people hear a different experience of the colonial story. The newly arrived a narrative of the colonial story. I think that there is, if there is a project of decolonization that is desperately needed among many of us, I will just speak for Puerto Ricans for a second, my view of the Puerto Rican community, is there is a, there is this work that we’re gonna have to do that is about dismantling and reimagining together that, you know, what does it mean? Uh, I, I wanna use Bad Bunny for one, for one example for a minute.

Please do.

Um, we got, there’s always room for a Bad Bunny reference, right?

Absolutely.

We have a family chat in my family, and that family chat has Puerto Rican people, from the Puerto Rico, and has people from the States

uhhuh.

And, um, and we have had the most fascinating Bad Bunny arguments in that chat.

Oh my gosh, yes. Tell us, tell us.

And and, and let me be clear, prior to the last, last album, I’m not a Bad Bunny fan. Um, I am A too old. Um, and I don’t get 90% of the references. It’s not right. I moved to, I listen to country music. I like, I’m I right? Like, I’m like, I know much more about what’s happening in Nashville country music than I know about what’s happening with Puerto Rico music. I’m like, I’m like stalking my parents music. I listen to like eighties and like eighties and below Latino music and then like country music forward in Americana. Right. It’s like a very weird, I don’t, and, and so Bad Bunny not in my catalog of music. But when the project came out, when status project came out, you know, you gotta pay attention to that. Something’s happening here. This is not just music. It’s a political project here that one needs to pay attention to. Yeah. And so it’s been so interesting to watch my family

Yeah.

The chat has three generations.

Wow.

Really try to negotiate its way into this conversation. Right. With like the older people saying: trash, not a representative of who we are. Yeah. Brings shame into our country and they, some of the younger generation saying: ah, I don’t know. I think the music’s pretty good. Like, you know, why are you so concerned about profanity? Why is that the thing you’re hung up on? By the way, the reason why we’re hung up on the profanity Protestant American Christianity.

Yes.

That’s why we’re hung up on the profanity. Yes. Oh, all the sexuality stuff. Why are we hung up on the sexuality stuff? American, Protestant Christianity. So you can see all of that colonial narrative, all of those colonial values playing themselves in this chat conversation.

Wow.

And the the peak of the conversation

Yeah.

Comes when my mom says that is not a Puerto Rican, I would not call that a patriot, she says. And I-

Interesting

said. I said I, I’m not sure that that’s a fair statement. Like, who are we to be the ar- of the arbiters of patriotism? Some people wouldn’t call us patriots. Right. Because we left.

Because you left. Yeah.

And I, and I, I, I, because whenever I pick on my mom, I do follow up with a phone call, right. So I, I had a long conversation with her afterwards. You know, and she finally said to me, we can’t agree to disagree. And I said, I, I’m not saying that, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Yeah. But what I am saying is that we have to be careful.

Mm.

When we use the word patriotic that, that we can’t be the arbiters of someone’s love for their country. Mm. Like it is obvious that Bad Bunny loves Puerto Rico.

Yeah.

It’s obvious in the choices that he makes. Yes. It’s obvious in the, in the decisions that he’s made around this. It’s obvious in the ways that he is trying to make sense of what’s happening in the place that he keeps going back to

Yes.

That I’ve never gone back to, to live.

Yes. Yeah.

And. There is something to be said for creating room. For what happens when the diaspora and the ways of the diaspora go back to the island. Right. So this is how I think about the Bad Bunny experience. That Bad Bunny looks at what’s happening with hip hop in the United States, just looking at what’s happening with, with all of this music that’s pushing against something that’s building for identity. And he’s also looking at what’s happening in Latin America and the Caribbean. What’s happening with the bands of the eighties and the nineties. What’s happening with the Calle Treces as they are beginning to talk about a kind of political narrative. Mm-hmm. And in the way that music is derivative, Bad Bunny emerges and begins to create a new sound. A new way that is both diasporic and 100% a part of this island and this people

mm-hmm.

And I don’t have to like it

Yeah.

To understand that there is a decolonial project built into this. Even while I can be critical of the ways that colonialism is still running through that.

Totally.

And that both, two things can be true at once. And so like I, when I think about the work we do in my work at Crossroads, it’s the work of helping people make sense of that.

Yeah.

That if, if in any given moment a people of La- a group of Latinos, it’s in a conversation, it is not a single conversation. It’s always gonna be a multi-level conversation. That there’s gonna be a conversation about, which generation of migration am I speaking from? How tied is my identity to the place I came from, or not? Yes. How am I relating into the linguistic cultural dynamics and how are they shaping even how I’m showing up in this conversation? Am I clear of my cultural, religious, political shaping?

Yes.

Am I aware of the narratives that my parents gave me so I could survive?

Yes.

That made me buy line, hook and sinker, some ideas about American mobility that were always a lie and will always be a lie. The job that I do is to try and give us a lens.

Mm-hmm.

To look at all of that.

Yes.

All at once. Uh, so, so maybe to come closer. Or maybe we can find a place of home with each other. Maybe so we can resist.

Yeah.

Right. At a minimum so we can resist.

Yeah. And it’s so much part of white Christian supremacy and the Protestant colonizing project there can only be one way. And there can only be one approach. And there can only be, like everything is black and white, which parallels with good and bad. And so even just the work of like, kind of, pulling the threads of the cloth apart and seeing that there are many lines running through it and holding all of that together, is I think the work of decolonizing everything. Because we have always been multifaceted, multi-layered people. Communities with different kinds of history. So, I’m curious if you would talk for a second about what you are thinking in this moment around the, the construction and deconstruction of Latinidad as as a project, because there’s so much up in the air atmosphere around

Oh yeah.

Latinidad or not Latinidad. For me, as somebody who was born in diaspora, it’s really important as a i-, as a political organizing identity. Because I feel like as somebody who didn’t grow up around Colombians all the time, I was, you know, off in a Appalachian community that was white. And, and there’s an identity piece or a formation that I missed because I wasn’t surrounded by people who constantly reinforced, this is our food, this is our language, this is our, so there’s a longing for something I didn’t know. And I see, as I see more and more what looks like white supremacy trying to swallow more of our people as a profound act of anti-Blackness, of like literally, if you are not Black, then we can, we can like breed you into white enough. That kind of aspiration that people, that we are like buying, as a people, that I feel really invested in. And I can hold the other reality that a lot of people feel totally erased by this pan-, you know, continental identity of Latina, Latine, Latinx, whatever that is. And I think it’s a really juicy conversation, and I, and I’m interested in us as a people talking about it and talking about how, what you’re saying around generations, I think also makes a huge difference in how we approach that conversation or where we find belonging or similarity. But mm-hmm. I talk more about that kind of, that kind of identity and multiculturalness multiracial ness.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, this is one that I can tell you I am a hundred percent pro Latino. I, I, oh, and I, like you, I’m a hundred percent pro Latino because I think it’s about a politic. It’s not about. It’s about a construction of something made up in the context of diaspora. That Latino is a, is a political, and by here, I mean, is a community that is making an agreement with itself on how it will be a community together to operate and advocate for itself, but to join in solidarity with others. And so it is about the politic of being a people and, and I think of Latino as being dynamic. Yeah. I think of Latino as being diasporic and in the context of the US, um, to be domestic.

Yes.

Meaning that, it is the Latino community is a diasporic, domestic, multi-generational, multilingual, multiracial project.

Yes.

To make a people. Um, as a way of combating the divide and conquer, of creating a place of home, of providing a place of solidarity, of providing a place to struggle from, and to creating that touch place that I can ground myself when nothing else grounds me. These people ground me. And, and there is, there is great complexity because colonialism is real.

Yes.

Colonialism is present, colonialism is past and is current.

Yeah.

And so the project to decolonize, the project to unearth and surface the lost story, the lost thread to indigenousness, to, to Blackness, to diasporic Blackness, really.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it’s necessary and it is important. And all of us, particularly those of us who are more recent migrants, and then the people who migrated before who were born out of migrants, also come from national narratives that themselves are projects. Puerto Ricans are a project. We are literally a political project. We were an island full of indigenous people that gets invaded by a colonizer who then introduces enslaved people who through time, people from other nations, including Asians, have come to, to also call home. And that all of those people together over time have built something called Puerto Rico. Yes. And who call themselves Puerto Ricans in the world.

Yes.

I don’t know that I can ever go back and be indigenous. Because my people who were indigenous, they were killed. Like I, I, I can go back and acknowledge it. I can go back, but I can’t go back and recreate it. Like, it’s not a thing that I can, you can’t just restore the past, not time machine. And I can’t go back and, and go, you know, I’m, I’m not from Africa. Like, it’s like, I love this poem from Aurora Levins Morales, uh, Child of the Americas. I am not from Africa but Africa is in me. Hmm. I am not from Latin America, but Latin America is in me. I am not from Europe, but Europe is in me.

Yes.

So I, we are all, we are a political project made of political projects who find themselves living in a political project.

Yes.

And so to me, Latino, Latin, Latinidad, this construction, in spite of its profoundly racist history.

Yep.

Like all awful things. Like being Queer. Uh, it’s a, it’s a project of what people taking an imposed identity, reshaping, claiming it for itself, and then building a political home from where to strive for one’s dignity and self-determination. And so I, I always struggle with the move to say, well, we gotta stop using the term Latino. Some people are Latino. They were born Latino. They were born in like a place of parents who met there from another place.

Yeah.

Who, whose grandparents met somewhere else from another place and then traveled to that place where they met and then they had this kid that, that kid’s not gonna go all the way back to four places of origin.

Yeah.

To call home. That person, that kid is a Latino. A product of the forces that brought all those people to this place. Yeah. And so I, I often say that I’m a Latino of Puerto Rican descent. Uh, with Midwest and Southern sensitivities. I have spent more time living in the South and living in the Midwest than I ever spent living in Puerto Rico.

Yeah.

And I am as deep, I am as comfortable eating like parsnips and rutabagas. And like, and eating biscuits and gravy with sausage. As I am eating mofongo, I am as comfortable having sweet tea, um, and like poundcake.

Yes.

Um, as I am eating sauerkraut and eating beer brats. That is what makes me Latina. Is that I am all of those things. It’s what it, it’s what made me not just Puerto Rican. It’s what makes me a Latina of Puerto Rican descent living in the United States. I, I feel like we, I think we need to create room in our decolonial project to understand that some things are born out of terrible ideas that turn, can be turned into and used for liberatory outcomes and um, that’s how I think about the faith I practice. Born out of terrible ideas that can be used for liberatory outcomes. I think the Latinos are like that. I think the construction is an imposition, but I think the project has liberatory outcomes if we allow it to.

Wow. That gives me so much hope. And, um, just reassurance, I think. Because if I were to say I’m Colombian, even though I was born in the US, raised deep in Appalachia and spends most of my time, I currently live in Mexico City. I spend my time throughout Latin America. It doesn’t feel authentic. Because immediately folks will be like, oh, what about this food? What about this word? What about this place? And those places, none of those places feel like home. Because it was, it’s Puerto Rico that I’ve spent the most time. It’s Mexicans that taught me how to cook and how to use chile and how to eat tortillas. And it’s, you know, folks in diaspora who were constantly in fear of police and ICE and la migra that, that my nervous system responds to, even though I was born in the US. Like the, that is all part of that experience, and I think it’s very chocante, like a very harsh reality for people who immigrate to the US to all of a sudden be Brown, whatever the hell that means.

Mm-hmm.

Because it goes from a, a national or a like community identity, to a different place in which now you are given a new name.

Mm-hmm.

Right, and at least in the south where I come from, everybody’s Mexican. So like, are you Mexican? It doesn’t matter if you’re from Puerto, Puerto Rico,

100%, It doesn’t matter. Yeah, no. Like, like no, I mean, I, it’s really funny. I, yes. Uh, here’s what’s interesting though.

Okay.

So like, you know, tacos al pastor. What Mexico is known for, Mexico City. It’s known for tacos al pastor like,

Delicious.

Where did tacos al pastor come from? The Middle East. Right? Right. It was Middle Eastern immigrants who moved to Mexico, who are walking around trying to make home, trying to find connection, who are like, well, there’s tacos, there’s grilled meat. If we take our making, if we take the gyro narrative of making Latin America, like making Lebanese food and Middle Eastern food in spikes that are vertical, what if we just make this meat in this way using these things. And well, we got labneh, they got tortillas. It’s a flat thing that you wrap around things. But like, but like it’s, it’s when I go to Puerto Rico and I eat Chinese food, yes, but like they’re the best Puerto Rico. The best Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life is in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. Why? Why? Because the Chinese people, the Puerto Rican Chinese people make Chinese peop- food the ways that Puerto Rican cook. So it’s like, it’s like the most pork filled, sorry. If you don’t eat pork, it’s the most pork filled. Like it is. Like how much pork did you put in this fried rice? Right? Like it’s like you’re gonna have the best tostones you are ever gonna eat, are gonna be on a little Chinese restaurant. That’s when you’re gonna get the best tostones. It’s not gonna be on a Puerto Rican restaurant, it’s gonna be on a Chinese restaurant. I think we have to be weary of any narrative that invites us to flatten both our national reality and our diasporic reality. I always struggle with the ways that my dad, when he was alive, would talk about like Dominicans from Puerto Rico and, and Chinese people from Puerto Rico, as if they were not Puerto Rican. And I’ll be like, I’m sorry, dad. If someone is on their third generation in the island, I think we can stop calling them Chinese. They may be Puerto Ricans who come from Chinese people, but at this point, I think we could say they’re Puerto Rican. I mean, like, we’re, we’re three generations in. I mean, like how many generations do you have to be, right, before we claim you? And I think, to me, that’s the thing. We, we started talking about home. And I, I think that for me, the only way to redeem the construction of race and the construction of imposed racial categorization

Yeah.

Is to is to redeem it by creating home for people. By, by using it, not as a place to, to be diminished. Uh, or to distance ourselves from, but to see it as the place where I meet the other people who are home to me.

Yes.

Right like, and that, and that the unique role of being a migrant, an immigrant, a displaced person, a refugee in a place like the United States.

Yeah.

Is that, is that those are the people that will help you like survive catastrophe. Yes. Those are the people that will show up for you when the migra comes.

That’s right.

Those are the people that are gonna go and walk with you to the court if you have to go to a hearing. Those like, that is, it’s, that is the one thing that, in order to decolonize it, it’s how do we decolonize it by building home within it.

Yes.

And I, yeah, there, there is something really powerful for me. That’s why I’m a great believer in it. Um, maybe my experience is that it’s those Latinos who were home to me.

Yes, yes. And the Latinos who were home to me were newly arrived immigrants from places that they were economically displaced from. Mm-hmm. Looking for a place to connect across, you know, language, culture, time, family. And it’s really a sacred thing to spend time with others and be able to have access to their children, to have access to their dinner tables, to have access to their mm-hmm rituals and ceremonies. And I think that is, so, for me, for my experience, is so multicultural. Even within Latin America, but it’s so multicultural and regionally specific and all of that mushed together. And I think it is, I have so much gratitude for that openness that I feel in so many of our communities. And I’m hopeful that we find places to be that. Outside of the very limited boxed in tiny people that we are allowed to be within conservative church spaces, because I think religion is that intersecting point for a lot of us, and yet it requires us to give up so much of ourselves.

Yeah, maybe, maybe the thing I would, I would add to that business of home and the context of religion. I, you know. Mm-hmm. I am, I believe the reason you said that Mark is your favorite gospel and Mark is my favorite gospel and I like, I like Mark as a gospel because it’s the first. So it’s the, the shortest. It’s the least complicated. Right, it has no childhood story. It has no resurrection in it. It starts abruptly and it ends abruptly.

And it’s messy.

Um, and it’s so messy and there’s so much cluelessness. And you, and you, you know, that it’s a story, right? That when the gospel of Mark gets written, it is written to be performed. So that it is meant to be a story that engages people. So it’s like it has a lot of action, like suddenly, quickly, like there’s all these likes, changes of scenery that are happening. But one of the things that, one, the reason why I love that gospel is that there is in it a kind of everydayness, um, of Jesus’s life, right? That there’s a lot of eating, there’s a lot of sitting in the desert, there’s a lot of like, being hungry. There’s a lot of like, how, how are we supposed to figure this out? Like, what’s going on? And there’s a lot of like folks that are encountered that provide pathways, that make ways, that, that create, um, in the everydayness create sacredness. That in the everydayness, there is that inbreaking that’s happening. Right. You know, as the, you know, as the listener that what’s happening here, if, if you, if this is your theological system, in your, in your theological condition, you know, as the listener that what’s happening here is that this force of the universe we call God is walking among us, is incarnate. And so that you are literally being given. A roadmap for what incarnation is supposed to be. It’s sitting with people. It’s, it’s being in the middle of the desert. It’s being afraid. It’s being with your friends in a boat. It’s like, it’s like picking up and following a sense of purpose and call. And it’s also living in ambiguity. It’s having zero answers and, and being given a community with whom to have zero answers. Right. Like with whom to be perplexed together. Right? Like it’s, it’s being given that over and over again. I think that if, if anything, what you just described, the people that, that you met, that held you, that made you home, that opened doors to people. I think that’s what it means to say that God is incarnate. Mm. That what, what we encounter in those moments is something deeply holy. Mm. And I think sometimes in the Americanized version of church that is about control.

Yeah.

Church that is about morality, church that is about prescribed set of beliefs, of belonging to a club, or people who are gonna be saved, or whatever that means. What gets lost is that, at least the Jesus I follow, the one I have conviction in, what invited us most, most simply, invited us to just be the presence of God to other people.

Mm.

That’s it. At a table in the street, at a courtroom, that’s all that we were asked to do. And I think that what colonialism wants to do,

mm-hmm.

Is to tell us that that’s actually not what God calls us to. Right. What colonialism tries to do is to tell us that Christianity is about, um, creating clubs of people who are superior to other people. Mm-hmm. Who are detached from the needs of other people, who are concerned exclusively with that kind of personal piety and personal salvation that disconnects you from community.

Yes.

And I think that’s antithetical

Absolutely. Absolutely.

To what the gospel is and what Christianity is.

And, and just blasphemy, if we could.

It is.

Yeah.

It makes an idol.

Ooh, wow. What an incredible conversation. I wanna end us with the question of who is your cloud? Mm-hmm. Who, who is part of your cloud of witnesses? Where is that fount of restoration? When you need reminders of who you are, where you come from, what you believe, who are those ancestors? Be they blood, family, cultural references, theologians, who makes that up for you?

I was, found myself this week really drawn to Fania All Stars. Like, um, for those of you who may not be familiar or maybe too young, for the Fania All Stars, uh, or do not understand that Fania All Stars was a recording studio from New York that made salsa music, made New York based salsa music

Okay.

Uh, from like the seventies, eighties, into the mid nineties, and it had an orchestra called the Fania All Stars. And it basically was an orchestra that profiled every single recording artist.

Wow.

That the Fania recording company had, and they toured together. People like Ruben Blades, people like Willie Willie Colon. Right? Like people like Hector Lavoe were all part of Fania All Stars.

Wow.

Willie Colon and Ruben Blades have an album called Siembra.

Mm.

Um, which is beautiful. The beautiful album. Um, and there’s a song, this, this, the title song of that album called Siembra is, it’s all about the, the beginning is like siembra, if you wanna have, if you want a community, you gotta, you gotta sow love you gotta sow compassion. You gotta sow empathy that if you don’t sow these things then you cannot have, you’re not gonna reap the things you want. Like you sow the things that you wanna see in the world. That’s why you have to sow the love of nation. You have to sow the love of people. This amazing, amazing song. And so when I think about my, my ancestors, I think about that song often as sort of the soundtrack that accompanies it.

Wow.

I think about people like my, my great-granddad who for better or worse, like, he was like a, a assistant to the, to the colonizers. He was like the evangelist, the first that became a Protestant. And yet, every person that I’ve ever met who, who knew my great-granddad loved him because of his profound compassion. And I think about my grandparents, um, as people who were incredibly flawed humans.

Yes.

Who lived lives of profound moral righteousness.

Mm.

And were broken in so many ways by, by colonial occupations, by war, by poverty. And yet we’re just incredible people.

Yeah.

That’s gonna make me feel super emotional now.

Yes. That’s really important for us to hold together. And I think we discard sometimes our people when we shouldn’t.

Oh no. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I, you know, I, um,

Take your time.

And I, I think about right, like, um, I think about like my, my uncles who have passed. Uh, I think about, um. My, uh, this woman that I, that I, when I was growing up, took care of us to help my grandmother who worked as a seamstress. So she worked 12, 14 hours a day. So that there was this woman in the neighborhood, who was a spiritualist. We, we helped her clean her saints. Right. Like her barias, so people would pay her

Yes.

For her to do, um, to do, uh, to, to put in through petitions, uh, under their name. And she’s a part of my crowd of witnesses, right? Yes. That, that belief in the, in the, the spirit of ancestors and in the spiritual realm.

Yes.

Uh, I think of people like my dad, um, yes. Who, who has passed on and, and, um, his commitment to seeing people.

Mm.

Um, yeah. To me they are, um, uh. Maybe the way to say this is that when I think of my spiritual ancestors, I think of they deposited seeds. Mm. They are the people who gave me a garden. Yes. And I am the person who gets to be stewarding all that has been deposited. For, in good ways and not so good ways.

Yes. Weeding as well as

I’m I and i’m Exactly. And there are some things that gotta be ripped out of there because they’re not useful.

Yeah.

And there are new things that I’m trying to put in there

Yes.

For the ancestor that I will become to others.

Mm.

Uh and so yeah. My, my spiritual ancestors are, are, are the Fannie All Stars are all of this great cloud of witnesses of my family that have moved on.

Yeah.

And I also think that there are spiritual ancestors that are living. Uh, as sisters that are, are in the making, right? Like they’re, they are, uh, folks like my former colleague Ann Stewart, who’s spirituals grounded so much of my twenties and thirties as we collaborated, as she as an elder now, and, and, you know, continues to, in a more limited way, do amazing work upholding community and, and, um, and I think of folks that whose, whose ancestry to mine is teaching me actively how to be an ancestor to others.

Yes.

And I, I’m grateful for that. I, you know, what it means to be a 1.5 generation is to be a bridge. And when I think about who the spiritual cloud I’m connected to and who the spiritual cloud that is coming, and how will will I be a pathway in between these places?

Wow.

And I don’t come from a tradition that does ancestor recognition. Right. We are not an ancestor people necessarily in our, in our spirituality. The colonizer took that away. Yeah. Um, but I believe that, I believe that the world, that the veil between this world and the other is thinner than we give a credit for. Yes. And so the ancestor that for me, the cloud of witnesses, that image of ala witnesses is this very thin, constantly intermingling thin space. Where ancestors, through us, connect to this world and the ancestors that are becoming through us connect to that world. Wow. And that we are the embodiment of the gift of both of those things.

Wow. Yes. Thank you for sharing that, and thank you for sharing your heart. I feel like one of my driving passions in trying to discern what is my path and what is right is that deep desire and hope that I be a worthy ancestor. Mm-hmm. That someone else will talk about in the way that you talk about yours, like not perfection, you know, deeply flawed as a being in this body, trying to make my way, but that the things that I plant will make the earth better. And I mean that in terms of like the literal earth and in terms of, yeah, literally our spiritual homes and our lineages, and it matters. And so I’m just grateful for your tenderness and openness around that because it connects us, again, circling back to the idea of home and mm-hmm. This space just in this hour together has felt like home. And I’m just really grateful for your presence and your time. Thank you. And sharing your brilliance. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you all.

Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy, queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Welcome to this week’s episode of Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today we have a riveting conversation with the Reverend Yadi Martínez-Reyna, who is a bilingual, Latinx, gender non-binary artist and a border lander out of southern Texas. They’re a certified spiritual director and co-pastor at first UCC in Second Life. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a virtual church inside the virtual reality called Second Life, but it has real life standing in the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ. They’re also the co-founder of Color Splash Out a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating safe and brave spaces for LGBTQ plus youth and their ally friends. I’m telling you, do not miss this episode. It’s gonna be amazing. Yadi, Hi!

Hello.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza!I have been wanting and waiting and anticipating this phenomenal episode. I know it’s gonna be great because literally some of the stuff we’re gonna talk about I’ve never talked about before and I’ve never heard about before. So I am just like delighted and over the moon that we are gonna get to jump into some really cool stuff today. So let’s start. Let’s start where we always start with Sinvergüenzura. Do you identify as someone who is Sinvergüenza? Yes or no, and why? And for our audience who may not be as familiar with Spanish, will you say what Sinvergüenza means to you as a concept, as an identity, as a theological premise? Mm-hmm. Tell us what your experience is with that and um, and how you relate to it.

I am shameless and in particular, I would say, because I was, I was raised in a very conservative church where everything was shameful. Yes. From like, what you’re wearing and what you’re saying and where you’re going and who you, you know, things like that. To finally have felt that freedom to, to be like, you know what, I’m, I’m shameless about how I am queer and loved and I’m shameless at how I’m an advocate and I’m an activist, and it’s like. I am. Yeah. I’m a Sinvergüenza. Like I love it. I’m able to say that now.

That’s right.

I’m gonna claim it.

The words It’s a journey.

Yeah.

You’re shameless in lots of ways because you, I mean, I could just, I have a laundry list in my head of all the ways that you defy what is considered proper or the regular or normal way to do things, it’s one of my favorite things about you that you’re like, why does it have to be that way? What if we did it a different way? And that queering everything, literally being like, we got this and we got that we can make something happen, um, is both like profoundly Mexican and Latine and also Totally. Totally Sinvergüenza. So, will you tell us just a little bit about where you are in the world and what home is for you right now or in general? Because we find you in a very particular geography right now.

Yeah, I, I am born and raised in Texas. And that’s where I’m right now,

Mm-hmm. Northern Mexico.

Texas. Texas, Texas, Texas. But, um, I was actually born and raised in the border of Brownsville-Matamoros, Mexico. So I’m a border lander. I consider myself a border lander. Um, which is like someone who’s, who’s born and raised by the border, but also someone who expands that, that border of ni de aquí ni de allá

Yep.

Um, Mexico, Americano, Chicano, you know, Chicane, whatever. But also in, in terms of like, I moved, uh, to north, north Texas, um, when I was going to college, like 1999, 2000, something like that. I moved up here to Texas in my twenties up in north Texas, leaving my conservative evangelical family and, and life and and all that. And I ventured into North Texas, the Dallas, DFW area. Yeah. And that’s when I was just like, oof. Because you know, for the longest time I was being raised in such a conservative bubble.

Yeah.

In family. And everything was, was Mexican and familia and, and the border and everything is, life is so different. And then you moved up to North Texas where it’s like this cultural phenomenon of like, that I was just like, whoa. Like everything just kind of like happened up here. And, and I, I’ve been up here for, uh, the past 25 plus years now I’m looking into moving back down to the border, uh, eventually by the end of next year. But yeah, I’m in Texas. If, if many of you might not know, but Texas is such an anti-LGBTQ+ and in particular trans, at this moment in time. And I’ve had people that say, well, why don’t you move? And the truth is because not everybody can move. And believe it or not, I, I love Texas. I love being so close to the border. I love being able to jump from, from Mexico to Matamoros, from Brownsville. I mean, it’s just, it’s been part of my life. And so I don’t see myself, like, leaving Texas. But at the same time, I feel like, you know, there’s so many kids here that might not be able to leave. And so it’s where I’m, this is where I am.

Okay. Well that brings us to your ministry. And maybe we’ll just start there, because when you’re talking about there are a lot of kids who can’t leave, you have been in youth ministry for a very long time. Yeah. And I love, I first I wanna hear about what you’re up to in youth ministry these days. And I think there’s a really important conversation that you and I have talked about around how youth ministry isn’t seen as real ministry. It’s like a stepping stone to the adults. And one of the things I love about you and your orientation to the work is like, it is absolutely not a, like, beginner level actually, it’s really hard ministry. Mm-hmm. And it is a worthy and value of its own time, budget, energy, effort. Kids aren’t the like adjacent throwaway to the adults with the money who have like the resources to give. They, in and of themselves, uh, have, have spiritual meaning and personhood. And so will you tell us a little bit about youth ministry in particular?

Yeah.

Some of the radical badass ministry that you’re doing in Texas where it’s so hostile right now?

In Texas.

Yeah.

So I started in ministry. I, I had left the church in my twenties and eventually I rounded it back into the church and I ended up going to this huge, massive, um, church, like as, as a volunteer in youth ministry. And, and eventually I ended up being the youth pastor or the youth minister of that ministry. Mm-hmm. Um, and, but one of the things that I’ve noticed and I’ve worked for, for four or five different congregations as, as, as a pastor, as as a youth pastor is, and, and sadly a lot of ’em have this in common, where there’s this matrix or this measuring matrix of like how many kids are in the pews. Yes. How many kids are sitting on the pews? Um,

On Sunday morning.

I’ve had pastors, on Sunday mornings, and so I’ve had pastors that literally would get upset at me and say, all right, you just threw this lock-in. Which I love lock-ins and people think I’m crazy, but something about run- because kids don’t sleep and, and neither do I ’cause I have insomnia. So like, it just works. They’re like, you just, you like, it seems like all you do is, is is get pizza and throw parties and lock-ins. And then they like, yeah, like you have 20, 30 kids show up randomly and, and you have like all these things. But then Sunday morning comes and like you have two or three kids. And so the measurement of it, it’s, and I’ve actually had a pastor tell me, like, it just doesn’t seem like the investment is not returning, um, ministry. And, and it’s sad, but I, I came to the realization that because that is a matrix that a lot of, and and sadly progressive churches are, are more at fault than this, than you see conservative churches are full of kids.

Yeah.

Because their investment in that, a lot of progressive churches would be like, well, we don’t, we don’t have youth ministry, we don’t have kids, and mm-hmm. And it’s like, you had a, a really big children’s ministry. What happened? How did they fell off? And so that’s when I realized like, I don’t think I am doing my best or I’m, I am doing my out of the box thinking as I am. Yeah. Um, and my shamelessness of like being in this box, that it, the matrix is how many kids are in the pews,

Like as if, and so as if that was like an economic exchange, right? Like what is that about? Why is it that kids have to be sitting in a pew on Sunday morning for that particular service and that one counts? Mm-hmm. Whereas other ones where they’re like sharing their heart, they’re being vulnerable, they’re off the streets, they’re finding community. Why is that? Why doesn’t that count? Like what did you put together in that, in like, what’s behind all that? What is that about? ’cause I think it’s more and more irrelevant what’s happening on Sunday mornings as compared to what we’re doing in the lives of people.

In particular, this one church where I was working at, like, they were like, you’re gonna be over social services now. Which is, you know, feeding the homeless, doing the pantry and all that. Because like, you’re just playing with kids like, you know, we’re paying you the salary and all, you just play with kids. And I’m like, no. Like I’m answering their phone calls and their text messages. I’m showing up at their school when they’re being bullied by some administrator because they’re queer and because they don’t respect them.

Yeah.

I am showing up at their games. I am showing up when parents can’t show up, not because they don’t want to, but a lot of, especially Hispanic parents, they work two, three jobs.

Yeah.

And so here you have Juanito who, it’s raining, and doesn’t have no one to take him home and missed the bus. And so who they call? They call the youth pastor. Yeah. And, and so that was my ministry. But what ended up happening though, instead of like being a bad thing that I was with social services is that I realized the connection and the intersectionality over some of the kids that don’t have food but they won’t tell you Mm. Don’t have parents at home, but they won’t tell you.

Yeah.

Are homeless, but they won’t tell you.

Yeah.

See, you see kids that are like in sports and so they’re showering in the gym. Yep. They’re eating, they’re doing all these things is you don’t have, you don’t realize that they’re homeless. So the same thing happens in church. You don’t realize that these kids that are coming might not have anywhere else to come. And so you have, uh, a deacon that’s upset because these kids are like eating all the donuts before the parishioners arrive, but you don’t know that that might be the only meal that kid had.

That’s right.

And so I came to realize such intersectionalities on these kids that I started doing mission trips and I started doing trips where I wouldn’t charge anything.

Mm-hmm.

And I would just tell parents, donate what you can, because I came to realize that there was kids that were not going to my events and they were not going to my mission trips. And because they were too embarrassed to say, I don’t have money, or I don’t even have a place to live, or I’m living in a car. Yeah. Why? Because they tell you and then you’re a mandatory reporter, then they think you-

Yep.

And so, um, kids just learn how to maneuver. Navigate And navigate things. And so they won’t tell you, but when you completely open it mm-hmm. To where like, come help me at the pantry, and then at the end you can take whatever you want. I realized that there was no, like, they weren’t feeling embarrassed about saying like, I don’t have food at home.

Right, talk about shameless, yeah!

All I’m saying is come help, and then take whatever. And then take whatever.

Right. It’s about working on that shame. And it’s like, we as adults can be like, I’m shameless, and we can put it out there as like, we’re proud and we can mm-hmm. Use words to talk about our experiences of oppression and marginalization, or our hard times or whatever, but, maybe being shameless for kids is helping them be able to navigate in ways that they don’t have to disclose. Especially for, they’re not stupid, they know about mandatory reporting. And you know, most of our mm-hmm kids want to be in family. They want family to be better or different or more resourced, which is often about systemic injustice and not about hardworkingness.

Right.

Um, but that’s so creative. I really, really love that. So what do you up to these days?

These days, well, I, so all this, all that church parish ministry Yeah. And all these things, like, it ended up showing me how much, like, I, I really love creating these spaces where young people can just show up and be. And so yeah, I created a nonprofit organization called Color Splash Out.

Yes.

And it’s about splashing color and, and, and when you splash color and when you throw color, which is one of our games at the end. Uh huh. Um, it, it goes everywhere. You can’t control it. And so what is, if like, if we offered a space where kids can just be authentic and be their authentic self? Yeah. And, and we’ve been creating summer camp, uh, I call it Summer Camp Adventures. When they can literally come and, um, parents drop ’em off. And unlike other summer camps where the parents take him to the rooms and like, we don’t do that. We, they drop ’em off in one area. We’re all playing games. When parents leave, I ask them, um, what house do you want to go to? And house, I name, um, cabins, we named them houses. Mm-hmm. And so, uh, you wanna go to the girls, you wanna go to the boys, you wanna go to the non-binary? And then we ask the house leaders, which are our cabin counselors, we call ’em house leaders. Yeah. And I play in that whole ballroom experience of being in the house

Yes. Yes ballroom culture.

As a form of creating, as a form of creating this space where they’re brave and they can write their name tag on the name they want. Not what the parents wrote on their form. What name they want. Yeah. And then they can tell me what house they go to. Yes. And so we, I tell people that volunteer in our, in our, in our camps and our, that’s house leaders. I say, I can’t tell you if you’re gonna be with the girls, you’re gonna be with the boys, you’re gonna be with non-binary. I can’t tell you what that’s gonna be like because I don’t know. I don’t know who we have until they come and they give me their cards and I give ’em a note card where they write and they give it to me. Then I grab ’em and be like, okay, I have 5 boys. I have 10 girls. I have, and then I’m like, dividing, dividing the stuff. And it, and people are like, isn’t that chaotic? And I was like, no, that’s, and that’s the thing about youth ministry that’s learning to pivot.

Ooh, yes. Pivot. That’s, that’s a life lesson.

Yeah. And, and that’s youth ministry. Yeah. Youth ministry is about pivoting. Youth ministry is about, um, logistics. The youth ministry is about creating. And learning how to, how to create things out of nothing. ‘Cause your budget sometimes is like itty bitty, your old, your old budget.

Yeah.

And it’s about, it’s about making things happen. I mean, this year we didn’t have any funding for camps. Uh, that’s one of the things that happened with all this administration stuff. A lot of, lot of nonprofits lost funding. And then when they lost funding, the funding that was coming from other nonprofits that were helping us, we lost it. And so a mom said, I have a ranch. It’s a little house. Um mm-hmm. And I was like, youth pastor heart, gimme a, gimme land, gimme a water hose and let’s do it. And we did it. We did three different camps for the age groups, but we did it. Wow. And so it’s about pivoting really. It’s about creating.

Yeah, I’m just thinking about the imagination and creativity needed to be able to really make something from nothing. Yeah, and it feels a little bit like the parable of the loaves and fishes of like, we have a house and we have some land and a water hose, and then let’s do it. We expand this into this whole camp experience, especially for our like L-G-B-T-Q kiddos, and I wonder if you feel like. It’s harder where you are because I feel like mm-hmm. If this was a different place, maybe a big city or maybe one of our hubs where there’s a lot of communal support Yeah. That it would be a different experience, but I think it’s, I think it’s a particularly brave and urgently needed and precious ministry to be creating that space for kids to be able to have as much agency and self sovereignty and space to explore their, their true selves. Absolutely. I just think of how old some of us are before we have the space or the bravery or mm-hmm. The support from those around us to try even, and, and to be giving that to young folks feels just like, wow, what an incredible gift. But I’m curious about the context that you’re in, if that, if you feel like that makes it a difference.

Yeah. No, absolutely. So color splash out is we, we don’t, we don’t promote. We have had up to 30 kids and every, every year we have like 30 kids, 30 plus kids, or 25 and, and we don’t promote it and they’re always a bit different. Mm-hmm. And it’s all word of mouth. It’s, it’s all within nonprofits that like share within each other, like the Open and Affirming Coalition shared it on their website, or shared it on their not website, but shared it in email.

Mm-hmm.

Um, or like different, um, organizations share it among themselves. But we’ve never promote where we are. We’ve never, um mm-hmm. We never go out there. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote a, a article on us and actually the, um, um, reporter came and spent an entire week with us at one of their camps.

Wow.

And, and the photographer as well. And, and the only thing I asked is, you know, one, they got permission from the parents to be able to interview the kids and be able to follow them around and ask questions and go to cabins and all that. But the only thing I asked is not to disclose where we were. Yes. Um, and we also change our locations often mm-hmm. Of where we are. Because of that. Because we don’t wanna, we don’t wanna create, um, you know, uh, a situation where, where, you know, will be canceled. Because that almost happened to us on our second year. Um, the place where we were gonna hold our camp called us and was about to cancel because Texas was in the middle, middle of making it illegal to do drag shows. Anyone that does drag shows was gonna be, you could be subject to felonies or, or indecency with a child. Yeah. Or um, like all these things,

Scary stuff, yes.

When they saw that we have a drag show as part of our camp, they, they called us and they’re like, like, this is, and I was like, no, no, no, no, no. This is a misunderstanding. And so we changed it to Variety Extravaganza Show. Ooh. And, and then, and, and I told, and I told our leaders, I was like, you know the truth, it really is not a drag show because we have trans kids performing and that ain’t drag. Yeah. So we left it at Variety Extravaganza Show and. And, uh, it is scary also now that Texas passed a law where, um, trans kids have to detransition.

Mm.

And they, um, you have to report as child abuse if parent, if you know, parents who are giving their kids hormones and, and, or all this stuff. And so what I did is I completely eliminated the whole send your, um, medical forms or your medical data on email and update on, on when you register. All I need to know is you have medicines. That’s it. Do you have medicines that I’ll need to connect with you when you get here? Come and see me, me and, uh, I have them fill out a actual paper, old school paper, and I put it in a Ziploc.

Back in the day when we used paper and pen.

Paper, we went back to that. Uh, we put it in a plastic Ziploc with their name on it. I take care of everything. I’m responsible for everything. So none of my adults, that might be teachers, that might be whatever, they might get in trouble. I get in trouble, I’ll take it. And then when they leave, they take their stuff and there is, there’s no data, there’s no information. Right. We do not keep anything. Um, so if the government ever comes and knocks on my door, what are you gonna get? ’cause there’s nothing.

Yeah.

And I don’t even take addresses anymore. I take zip codes.

Yeah.

So good luck with that. Because we have, we actually have kids that have left Texas. We have some kids that went to New York, some take kids that have moved to Chicago, have some kids who move to New Mexico. So we have kids that have left the state and so, but they come back to camp. Yeah. And I, and I’m just so grateful that they do and, and, and so excited to see them again. Um, and, and, and that’s my, that’s my promise to the parents. Like, yes, I got you. Here you and me. Nobody else needs to know this.

I love that. It just feels like this.

And I’m shameless.

Is the moment. That’s right. This is the moment, right? This is, it feels like this is the moment, this is the time. We are the ones. And so creating those spaces and those commitments of like what, who are the people that you will be shoulder to shoulder with in La Lucha? Who are the folks that you will fight for? And um, yeah, it just is amazing. It’s amazing, amazing work.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I love it. And so when people think, when people say, well, you know, youth ministry is a, it’s a, because I’ve heard it before, like when I was about to graduate from seminary. Mm-hmm. And they would say, well now that you’re, now that you’re gonna get your master’s and you’re gonna get ordained. ’cause I was licensed, now you’re gonna get ordained. Like, would you be taken in a call? And I was just like, this is my call. Like this, this is like, I’m gonna be the old, I used to say I’m gonna be the oldest youth men pastor in the world. Like, I’m gonna be like in my eighties and still be playing soccer, whatever. Like if you’re gonna go into parish ministry, youth ministry is, it’s not the stepping stone that is your training wheels. Because you’re gonna learn how to keep confidentiality, but at the same time, you’re gonna know how to balance that. And, and I always told them, you know, like, I’ll hold it, but if you’re gonna hurt yourself or others because I care for you, I’m gonna have to find out, help. Find help. And they would understand, because I’m, I’m being honest about what I can do and cannot do. And you’re gonna do that in parish ministry. You’re gonna learn how to do logistics. You’re gonna learn how to pivot. You’re gonna learn how to create.

I love it. But you are not just a minister extraordinaire. In real life. And I don’t think that I quite had a sense of the phrase in real life until we had our first conversation and I was like, oh, there’s real life. And then there’s another whole world that is not real in the sense of like, you get in a car, you drive somewhere. But it is absolutely real in the sense of like alternative universes, which feels like theological imagination. It feels like prophetic, prophetic vision and creativity. So I’m gonna pivot us right now.

Yeah, absolutely.

To talk about your other ministry, which literally blew my mind, um, in a different way. Because you are a pastor. Mm-hmm. A real pastor at a real, like inside of the UCC denomination, official and all of that, part of a conference, church inside a video game. Right?

Yeah. A virtual world.

Okay. Virtual world. Will you help us understand, because I had never heard of this before, and I’m sure that there will be people listening who have never heard of this before. What, what, what, what, tell us about this. What church?

Yeah. So I, yeah. I, I, so I’m, I’m, I’m a co-pastor. There’s three of us, Uhhuh, I’m a co-pastor of, uh, um, at first UCC in Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world, Uhhuh. Um, and so first UCC in Second Life is a real church with real life standing in the, in the, um, Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ.

Okay. How’d that come about?

And the three of us

Yeah. How’d that happen?

Yeah. So, so Pastor Jerome Newstart, uh, our founder. Uh, California may, may rest in peace, uh, created in Second Life. So second, life’s been around for for a while now. Uh, and it’s a virtual world where people literally log in into this virtual world through their computers, create their avatars and create homes. They actually pay money, real money to create a land, to create all kinds of stuff, universe. And a lot of people that have been in Second Life and create these things are perhaps people that are like home bound. Mm-hmm. Uh, or people that are in other countries that might not have a connection to progressive church or places.

Mm-hmm.

Or, or trans people who like, create a new avatar, a new world. And there’s also, uh, a community of littles. There are like a bunch of little children running around who might be, uh, adults who are autistic and see themselves as children. Uhhuh. So you have this, or you have furries. Um, so you have like this whole different,

What are furries? Tell us about that too, too.

So you might have like someone who, um, who is like, likes to dress up in costume or furry, uhhuh animal, things like that.

Like cosplay kind of thing.

Cosplay kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, and so this world, Pastor Jerome Newstart, he, he is a, uh, a trans man who realized like, you know, I’m a pastor and I would like to create some space where people can come and just be

Wow.

And so he created this, this church, this First UCC in Second Life an island, it’s called Newstart Island. And he created like a little chapel there. And then he realized like people were coming, people were, and so he did something called Psalter. So Psalms.

Uhhuh.

So Wednesday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, something like that. Like you go online, you go and sit around a circle and there’s no voice. It’s just a chat box. And then it just increased to creating a, uh, a church. And so October 14th, 2013 would be the exact, um, time of the first service, church service that he created, where people came in and, and went to church as whoever they say they are. So I’ve been preaching to unicorns, I’ve been preaching to whoever, whoever shows up.

I love it. And the church is beautiful, like the setup in the game, in the virtual reality. Yeah. It’s a beautiful worship space with altars and flowers and candles and like, it’s very, it feels like church. It’s very beautiful.

Yeah. It and and and it’s cheaper to get your vestments and all your stuff, so.

Yes. And I saw you have your like rainbow stole.

Stole. Yes.

It goes like all the way the ground. Yes. It’s, it’s beautiful. And, and so I love this idea of you preaching to a unicorn. What was that moment like? Did you just like look around one Sunday morning and there was like a unicorn in one of the pews or?

Yeah. Yeah. So I call my ministry Blind Grace. Because I, I don’t know who it is that I’m ministering to. I know who you say, you’re telling me you are.

Yeah.

Either by voice or by chat, but I really don’t know who you are. And, and, and it doesn’t matter. You’re, you’re a sacred person and I am gonna treat you with the sacredness that you are if you’re humanity and or whoever you are.

Yes.

And so, in fact, the, a couple of days ago, um, somebody had messaged me that they wanted to do some, needed some pastoral care. Yeah. And so I was trying to figure out the time zones because they’re in Portugal.

Oh.

And I was trying to figure out like, what would that time zone be? And so finally I said, is this church time good for you? But tomorrow? And they’re like, yeah, that would work. I’m getting outta work. I work, you know, whatever. And I was like, okay. So wow. Pastoral care through chat and, and because, you know,

Inside the virtual reality.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I hold a lot of, I hold a lot of pastoral care through chat because, um, either they don’t wanna use their voice or they can’t. Some, I had, um, one person who say, you know, um, I, my, I, my roommate’s very nosy. I can’t talk, but, so can, do you mind if we just chat? And I was like, sure. And so we’ll do some chat and, and. Other times we’ll do, we’ll do voice. So it really depends how people are comfortable.

Yes. And that like, it’s actually open and affirming and welcoming. Like that you don’t get more expansive than inviting littles and unicorns and furries. Like it is for real when we say all are welcome. It’s like a new standard in my book for what it means to be like, all are welcome. But you had to fight for that to be seen as legitimate in seminary. So I would love for you to tell the story of like

Yep.

Because you know, I, I mean it blew my mind and I was totally fascinated and delighted and like this is the queerest, coolest shit ever.

Yeah.

But I can imagine for institutions that it, it felt like what in the world are we talking about? Will you tell us a little bit about that story? Because I know the founder

Right? Absolutely.

Came like was coming behind you being like, this is real and so this tell us. Yeah.

I needed to do my internship for seminary because my spiritual director, Dr. Christine Ng, was at Second Life as one of the pastors.

Um, oh, cool.

So she’s, she’s responsible for taking me there. Uh, but she

Her fault.

Yeah. It’s her fault. And so she said, you know, why don’t you do your, why don’t you do your internship with us? Yeah. And I’m like, okay, but I’m gonna need a convener. And I’m, because you know how Seminar is, you’re gonna need a convener, you’re gonna need a moderator. You’re gonna need, like, you need all these people who are gonna fill your paperwork. Yeah. That you’re doing all the things that it says that you, because it’s an institution, you gotta do all these things for seminary, right? And so she’s like, yeah, absolutely. We have that. We’ll have that. ’cause there’s Jerome, there’s me, there’s, there’s Doug there, a lay minister, there’s other people we can tag in for other members. And she’s like, yeah, we can do it. And so I took it to seminary and I was like, I would like to do my internship at First UCC in Second Life. And so they were like, what? And so luckily for me, um, Dr. Sprinkle at that time, and, and Dr. Joretta Marshall, who’s like, was the dean at that time, said, yeah, let’s do it. But then they went on sabbatical.

Wow.

Right when I was about to start my internship. So some new people came in and they were like, you’re crazy. Um, because what are we? And so one of ’em actually said, what are we gonna tell people that you could just go online and call it ministry?

YES!

So, fast forward to COVID.

Yes, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do!

Fast forward to co COVID times, they’re calling me back and saying, Hey, do you mind coming, you know, coming to seminary and talking about ministry and, uh, the computer. I was like, yeah.

And doing it online.

Doing it online. I was like, sure. So yeah, it took, it took a minute, but, but it was, it was, and it’s so amazing because like I had my convener, my moderator, all these people that are filling out documents on me and, and doing all this stuff that were like in, in Connecticut and Virginia and New Mexico and all over the US. And then they were all showing up to these, to these meetings on Zoom and everything. Or on, on to try to send my paperwork in.

Yes. You were before your time.

Before COVID. Yeah. So then when COVID hit, it was, it was a matter of, like, for us, it was just like. Yeah, but we were able to help, uh, in fact, we were able to help others to see ministry as like, it is beyond part of my, my prayer when, when I do is like invoking the Holy Spirit and like, may, may the Holy Spirit be wherever you are.

Yes.

And, and may the Holy Spirit go through the network and through these waves of wherever you’re found because that’s Second life. Like we’re just, we’ll go wherever it is that you’re found and you’re at. And, and the hardest part I think for some folks is like, so how do you do communion? And I’m like, you do it like you do it anywhere. I break the bread and my avatar would raise the, the bread ’cause I program it. And it’ll raise the cup and. And it’s cool. We’ve done a baptism, um, which that brings people’s mind.

Yes. Tell us that story. Yes. No, tell. This is a really important story because I think especially these days where we’re becoming more aware and more sensitive to people’s different needs and preferences around things like touch, around people’s cognitive abilities and preferences. So that, this was one of the things because in Culto Cuir, in Teología Sin Vergüenza, we have a Culto Cuir, where we do a trans baptism and a renaming ceremony mm-hmm. And that’s a really important moment for folks to be able to have a community of faith, an ordained pastor, affirming their name with a certificate, with their declaration of who they are before a congregation to say, we love and support you and we care for you.

Absolutely.

And we’re here for you. And you have a parallel story in Second Life. So will you tell us the story of that baptism? ‘Cause that feels really meaningful. Yeah. And important.

So baptism is you have to have water, right?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

You have to have the community

Mm-hmm.

And the words of institution that’s baptism, those three things. And so here we have a young person who is, um, who is the other part of the world, I believe it was, uh, Sweden, I think, or it was, it was another part of the world. I think it’s escaped me. But, um, he wasn’t, he’s in an institution. Mm-hmm. Um, um, on the spectrum, cannot be touched, uh, does not like to be touched, do not like to be handled. And here he is and he wants to be baptized. And so, yeah, we made a, so Pastor Newstart and, um, and Pastor Christine Ng um, they, they did something where they’re like, well, they created the whole avatar water.

So you literally have to like build that right? In the game. In the virtual reality.

Yeah. They, in the, they got that in, in the virtual reality they have the water and uh, they have the, um, the congregation all came in for the special ceremony. And in real life, um, he is in his part of the world with, with his brother and nurse or whatever, putting his hands in a water bowl.

Yes.

And naming, naming his, his name, and we’re saying, we’re baptizing the little avatar baptize you in the name of the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. And in real life he’s dipping his hands in the water and being affirmed. Wow. And so that, that parallel of like being able to, to touch water, tangible

Yes. Yes. in us and around us. water being universal. Yep.

Two individuals next to you. Yep. Um, and then you are watching everything happening to your little avatar where your little avatar is being dunked. ‘Cause that’s like Yes. The coolest thing. Um, and all these avatars all around you, all these people all around you sitting in their computers, in their homes, affirming you, welcoming you, congratulating you, and you’re in another part of the world.

That’s amazing.

And you’re welcomed into the, into, into family. And to be able to say, you know, I baptize you, I baptize you. Yes. And I name you and I welcome you. And you’re part of this family. Yes. To someone that might not be able to, to be touched or to speak or to leave the room.

Mm-hmm.

But they got to experience it.

It’s a whole lived experience that is really, truly lived, but is kind of the epitome of accessibility. Mm-hmm. And the epitome of care. And I just, there’s a movie called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin that is about a person who was home bound and their experience of a degenerative illness mm-hmm. And their life inside a virtual reality and how much community and friendships and, and lived experience they got to have in the final parts of their lives, life where they weren’t able to be out in the world. And you know, I don’t think it has to be that severe, but I do think about like our elders who were home bound. Mm-hmm. I think about folks who are institutionalized for whatever reason. I think about so many human beings. Also, some of us who, especially post COVID, are just like, I don’t want to be out and around people in germs. And like, there’s a thousand reasons why this kind of virtual reality, I can just see it now that you’ve, like, described it, I just can see it as such an offering for our communities of so many different forms. Do you find that that’s true in the people that come through?

It’s absolutely true. In fact, one of my first funerals or, or memorials that we did actually, um, there was a little who was bound to to their bed, to their home.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh,, one of the members, family members logged in, asked, asked them to, and, and told us. She’s passed.

Wow.

And we were like, oh my God. Like, this is like, it, it, it hit our, our, our, our, our community. Right. Like, oh my gosh, she’s passed.

Yeah. Yes. Um,

and so we decided we need to do a, a memorial because just like in real life, like someone’s passed. Yeah. And so we need to offer pastoral care. We need to show up, we need to be here for our community. Yes. And so we told the family we’re gonna be doing a memorial for, for, for her. And so we logged the family in through Zoom to see the memorial that we were holding for her. And so we went and got one of her photos that we had of the little uhhuh. Um, and the family was touched by the fact that all these little avatars, all these people showed up. Yes. To a memorial. And we did, like we do in real life. A funeral, all three pastors. Um, we stood together and we read through it, and we did a memorial. Same thing when, uh, pastor Jerome Newstart passed away.

Yeah.

So many people that he’s touched and through, through the last, since 2013 that he’s been a pastor of here. Yeah. And so we created a, a memorial for him. In real life. Our conference minister was doing the funeral in real life in California.

Yeah.

And in Second Life, I was doing it in Second Life.

Oh my gosh.

So at the same time, we were having fu- the funeral homes and the the, the, the, um, they were seeing the Second Life community.

Wow. And the funeral was going on virtually.

At the same time. Um, one of our pastors was over there with the conference minister doing it, and we were. Parallel. Two worlds.

Yes.

Honoring this, this great guy who, who created this and who had passed. Yes. And so it’s just such an honor to carry on, on that legacy, to carry on, on that dream that he had of, of creating this space. And then to see it beyond his passing. In fact, when he passed he said, I’m gonna leave. He left this, uh, he left some money and everything so the church can continue. Because as I say, you have to, you know, you buy for the land, you pay for the land and all that stuff, so Right. He, he left this church, Newstart Island and everything paid for. His son gave us access to his avatar so we can keep him as, as one of the caregivers of the island.

Mm. Um,

So that we can, you know, log him in and, and put vestments and put things and create things and, and then we log him off ’cause it’s kind of creepy to see his avatar around.

Yes.

But, um, yeah. But, but his son, his family got to see how we continue that legacy of, of this space. Yes. And so when, when I finished my last, uh, parish ministry, I, I decided that I wanted to, I wanted to continue this and so I, I accepted a call to become the pastor of this community. ’cause I was like, I had so much fun when I was an intern and I felt like, God, there’s so much I could do with this. And Yeah. And sure enough, like. I feel like I’m home.

Yes. Oh, I love it. I logged into YouTube because not only if folks don’t have, if they’re not, if you’re not savvy and you aren’t ready to enter into the whole virtual reality. Though, my whole family has been like, what if we, we’ve been chatting about what our avatars might look like. But even before that, folks can access it on YouTube because you also stream the services. So I got to see one of your services most recently that I think was like a movie mixed in with, with a sermon. Um, but I got to see the entire, you know, hour long church service in Second Life. And I just am astounded and humbled. And I mean, maybe this is a little extreme, but I feel like in this moment where AI feels scary and mm-hmm. The internet feels scary and there’s so much control and, you know, authoritarian threat, that when I see things like this, it. Truly restores my spirit in a way that’s like we are as creatively good as we are creatively bad as a species. Yeah. And it, and like there are, there are those of us, like you, like Jerome, like the people who started this and continue it and come, who are really willing to lean into something that is totally unexpected. Mm-hmm. And yet makes all the sense in the world. And when I think about ministry and I think about what our aims are, especially those of us who believe in radical inclusion. Yeah. It doesn’t get more radically inclusive than this. Like what have you learned over your time there? What, what are your takeaways from this? Because clearly it hooked you because you’re back as one of the ordained ministers after your internship. Yeah.

Yeah. So I actually had pastors that would say, it’s cool if you like video games. Hmm. Or you know, things like that. And I’m. You could play video games. You, you could actually go to concerts too. You can. Wow. You can do so much there. But it is so much beyond that. In fact, um, I, I’ve been, I’m still learning. I’m always learning in, in Second Life. Yeah. But I had someone actually tell me, um, one of the reasons that you might see one of our avatars there, uh, and, and it says away, or they’re asleep. ’cause they’ll actually create, like, areas they’re like, because in real life we don’t have nobody.

Mm.

And so we’re literally asleep on Second Life because we feel like I’m going to bed, but I also know my little avatars in bed and it’s in a community. Mm. And so I was like, that, that blew my mind. Like, oh my God. So. But because they might be home bound, and so when they wake up, they literally wake up their little avatar.

Mm.

And they literally check in with their friends and they literally go to school and they literally have families and, and they have like, they have family dinners and they’re all sitting around a, a fa because I actually was invited by one of the littles to their, to their home for dinner. And I was just like, okay,

These are chosen families?

Chosen families. And so they, they have a dad, a mom, a brother, a sister, because they, they don’t have that. So in real life, they created this world, they created this, this, um, this, this whole family of choice. And so I was invited to dinner to someone’s house, and I was just like, okay, this is weird.

Wow. You’re like, the pastor going to family dinner.

Go to someone’s dinner. And so they send me the link to where, and I show up and I’m like, I should probably bring flowers. And so I, yes. Google, you know, and so I show up and I’m like. Good evening. And I brought, and so everyone’s sitting around the table and they’re bringing all these things and, um, but in real life they’re literally sitting having dinner mm-hmm. While their families are having dinner.

Yes. Like I to each in their own, own respective country or place. Yeah.

And I got to hear how they all connected, how they all came together, how they’ll all be at church on Sunday. Like I had, I got to hear all these things and it’s like, I was, it was, it blew my mind. ’cause I was like, of course. Whoa. Like this is crazy. Wow. Like, but, but they check in on each other. They, how is school today? How is work today? How is, because that is the only connection they have. And so, um, yeah. There’s always folks who would say like, yeah, but, um, you’re spending too much time online. What about real life? Which is, you know, you see that game Ready Player One, things like that. It, a lot of things come to mind in that. But the truth is, some folks don’t have the ability to go out. Some folks are immune, uh, compromised that, that, that might not be it. That might not. And so they’ll sit at home and they’ll be alone. Or, they enter this world where they’re free.

Yeah.

And so you’ve had avatars who I had, there’s this one avatar who was wearing a whole apparatus thing, Uhhuh, because in real life they needed a breathing system. And so they created their avatar to have a breathing system.

Wow.

So some create what they see themselves as. Others create a whole different persona. Um, and that’s why I say like, I don’t know who I speak to. I don’t know who I’m talking to. I don’t know what I see is real, but as we’re here, it’s real. And I always say, and, and part of part of what we say is, it feels good to be real in Second Life. Mm. And that’s part of our model. Yes. Um, no matter who you are or where you are in life’s journey, you’re welcome here because it feels real to be. To be real in Second Life. And, and it’s a way of saying like, we see you. Mm-hmm. Um, we acknowledge you and we honor you.

Yes. It’s like, you know, so much of our role as chaplains or as pastors is to be the presence of the divine with the people that we are with. And that’s literally what you’re doing. You’re providing that ministry of being there, of seeing, of, of reflecting back someone’s sacredness regardless of what the, being in front of you, what their avatar is like. And I just feel so inspired by that possibility because of course, we all have our biases, so we mm-hmm in real life have our, you know, prejudged, preconceived ideas about people or, or what they’re gonna be like. And that ability to just open your heart and be present with folks when they need you and need church, and know that it’s gonna be there and the doors are gonna open and there’s gonna be you coming through preaching or having other kinds of services. Like I saw a taize service and like, there’s just all kinds of stuff that people can really be a part of.

We have meditation on Mondays and Fridays mm-hmm. Where we do Lectio Divinia, we’re doing, um, a book and, and you know, I’ll, I’ll get some Cassidy Hall with, with Queer, Queer Spirituality. Like I’ll get different texts and, and we’ll go through the text and we’ll do like, Divina and we’ll like, which is like, like Divina is like going through the text and repeating it several times and then creating different and, and listening. Careful listening. One of the things that I did, uh, I did a two year residency with Stillpoint on the art of spiritual direction. So I’m a spiritual director as well. And so, and, and so I, Christine Ng, who’s my spiritual director, wanted to create that meditation part of like spiritual direction on Lectio Divinia on Mondays and Fridays.

Yes.

And so now I lead it. And, and it’s really cool because like you don’t have to speak. Like, you literally can just come and sit there, uh, around the fire. Yeah. And just see the text rolling. One of the things that I, that I do wanna say is, being a pastor at First UCC and Second Life, I still have to get my sermons ready for Sunday.

Yes.

I still have to get my, I still do pastoral care, like I still have to show up and do things. I still have to do like all these things that you do as a pastor, like, it’s still true. But I have to get all the texts into note cards because those that cannot hear everything is on, on a chat box. Everything’s on a note card. So I cannot just wing a sermon. Yes. I have to be able to put it on, on a box, on a chat box, on a note card. That then gets, you get like people are reading it and seeing it as you’re talking, because we do have people who cannot hear. So I mean,

Just the accessibility aspects of it alone are just. Just wildly creative, wonderful, super helpful things that should always just be true. There should always just be closed captioning, and yet there’s like this intentionality behind what you’re doing that I just feel like is a beautiful, mind boggling, incredibly creative, brilliant, um, expansion of what feels possible in ministry and also that feels super relevant. You know, I feel like the church is constantly having this conversation about like, how do we get more people? How do we become more relevant? And it feels like y’all kind of did the opposite, where it’s like this is what is needed and therefore this is what we are creating. And it makes so much more sense to do it from that way versus this like, how many butts in the pews on Sunday morning kind of mentality that we were talking about earlier.

And for me, like even right now in today’s world where if I have to leave the, if I have to leave the country. Yeah. Which, you know, sometimes, uh, I, as much as I’m like a stubborn Texan and I’m like, I’m not going anywhere, y’all have to leave. So I’m not leaving. I’m shameless and I’m gonna stay here. Yes. And harass and, and create trouble for y’all. But if I do have to leave and I have to leave the country, yeah. I’m still gonna be a pastor in Second Life. Yeah. Because as long as I have internet, as long as I have, I have wifi. As long as I can connect, I’ll continue ministry. Yes. And, and I really like that, um, ability to travel and to do what I do in my ministry and still be connected to my parishioners and still be correct, connected to the community that I’m serving. No matter where I am.

Yes. I love it. Speaking of that, you know, the what if, the questions that are coming up and, and all of those things. I feel like it’s important for us to talk a little bit about you also in your own life and your own, not just your ministry and what you offer to others, but in your own world of like, how is it for you right now? How is the, how are we in community? What are you seeing around you right now in your specific place of community, in your family? Mm-hmm. Um, tell us a little bit about where you are on your journey. I know you’re starting a new chapter, um, also in family life, so any of that that you wanna share, we wanna know about you.

Yeah. For the last, uh, for the last four years, my partner and I have been raising our grandchild. Mm. Um, and our grand boy, he’s, yeah, he’s, he’s a little white boy with blue eyes and so-

I love that “grand boy”

My grand boy. Um, yeah. And, or, or, yeah. And so, um. Our, our, our son is, the last one in, in, in our little nest is, is 23. And so. Yeah, so he’s, he’s studying music and he’s gonna graduate next year. And so we’re so proud of him. Wants to be a school teacher, a band teacher, a music teacher. And so I’m so proud of him for that. And so we were so excited to be like, yay. Empty nesters. Empty nesters. We’re gonna travel. I was already measuring the room, and where am I gonna put my bookshelves? And so excited about it. And then, um, we realized that our, our, our grand boy needed, um, needed family, needed. Yeah. Needed. We needed to raise him and we needed to, so we took him in. And so here I am sitting at pre-K and I’m going. So, yeah. But, but I’ve really been enjoying the whole raising him and, and he’s on the spectrum, so he’s got his own little spicy personality. Yes. Of things. And so I’ve been, I’ve been learning how to navigate that and Yep. I’m homeschooling him now, so,

Woo. Adventures in homeschool. Woo!

So I’m also learning, I’m still learning how to do that. But, you know, he’ll, he’ll be standing at his desk and dancing and doing all kinds of stuff, and then he’ll be serious doing his homework, and then he’ll be dancing and, and it’s just like, I’ll look at him and I’m like, oh my God. Like, no wonder his teacher was going nuts with him. But I, I’m learning this whole thing, and my partner is a school teacher, a paraprofessional, so she helps, she’s actually a, a teacher aid. Mm-hmm. And, and so she was ready to just go and teach. And so I’m, I’m excited because my whole, so she kind of raised our kids, you know, and so, yeah, I was in seminary and I was working jobs and I was traveling and I was doing all this stuff. So now I get to do this. Um,

You’re the primary parent?

I’m the primary person, yes. Who’s with him and I’m really enjoying this, this leg of my, of my life. So, yeah. And, and I’m learning that he, he cannot, um. Be put in a box when it comes to studies. And I think we tried that, um, the last few years. We had to move him from his regular elementary school. ‘Cause by 10:00 AM he was done with his homework. And um, the school was like,

Yeah, that’s a dangerous one. When you get ’em that smart, it’s like, woo, you’re gonna have, he’s run to keep up.

Well, and then the school was like, um, he’s done with his homework at 10, so he gets to play Play-Doh and for the rest of the day. And I was like, why don’t you challenge him? Why don’t you give him Yeah. He’s like, because we have 35 others

Yeah.

That we need to teach. And so we can’t stop for one. And the thing about it is that you don’t get to, um, you know, like this, uh, special education or or gifted and talented until you’re in third grade.

Wow.

And so here we are in first grade and he’s done by 10:00 AM. And so we put him in a charter school and he did good. But once that charter school closed, as many schools are closing right now here in Texas especially. Yes. Um, and maybe all over the country as well, with the education stuff going where it is, we realized that for third grade, it’s like, we’re just not gonna, we’re gonna like, we’re gonna try something different. And yes. And I’m learning, but he’s done by one with schoolwork. And then I’m like, all right, let’s go take the dogs for a walk, or let’s go on an adventure or let’s, you know, and I’ll, I’ll work in between whatever it is that we’re doing. Um, but it’s exciting to see him and he see his little brain just,

Yes, just learning.

But I’m learning, I’m learning. I’m in, I’m in, I’m in that thing of learning how to maneuver his outbursts that sometimes he has.

Mm-hmm.

And being like, oh my God. But, but it’s, that’s how he is, I guess, I dunno.

Right and us. I mean, it just feels like an extension of your work around, like, we accept all of the person and we are doing all of this work. And it feels like, man, we’re putting that to the test 24/7 with another generation. But I was raised by my great grandmother, so I have a very tender spot for grandparents who are raising their grandchildren or for people who are raised by their grandparents. And I just think it’s like, it’s a special moment and it’s really cool that you have this whole new generation where you are more stabilized in your ministry mm-hmm. And your work, and now you’re getting this whole other parent experience. So Yeah. Yeah. That

Well, and cultural. Yeah, cultural wise. I, I, you know, cultural wise, uh, I, my dad, I mean, that’s just the way we were raised. They’re like, you’re ADD. No, you’re not. You’re chiflado Calm your ass down, or you know, we’re gonna get the chancla, you’re, we’ll see how ADD you are when you get home. You know what I’m saying? Yes. So it wasn’t so, I,

There was no accommodation.

No, it was like, you what? Um, or you wanna go to therapy or you wanted to go somewhere? And it was like, no, you don’t do that because they’ll think you’re loco. You know, you’re crazy. Yeah. We dont do that. Yeah, we don’t do that. Or you’re just chiflado, or you have a learning disability. No, you’re not. You’re lazy. Mm-hmm. And so I, you know, I, I was raised with a lot of that stuff, A lot of, uh, and so now with him, you know, I’ll hear things and I’ll find myself going like, maybe I’m not pushing him enough. And then I’m like, no. Like, that’s just how he is. Um, but you know, it’s so learning that that whole cultural thing.

Yes. We’re unlearning all the stuff that we learned.

I’m learning that. And so, yeah. I’m doing a lot of reading and I’m doing a lot of searching and a lot of trying to figure out, because like there’s that cultural part of me of like, nah, he being chiflado, like he’s gonna, and then I’m like, I catch myself going. He can’t, like, that’s just, that’s just his personality. I don’t think he’s doing it to annoy. He’s just, that’s his personality. He just randomly starts singing in the middle of-

That sounds like praise and worship. Just he up in the spirit.

There he goes. Like he just felt the spirit and he started dancing.

That’s right.

But it’s, it’s been a whole cultural thing of like, of learning. And, and the funny thing is he likes hot stuff and, and he’s learning Spanish and I’m having him, yeah. I’m teaching him Spanish and I’m having him write it. Okay. Um, ’cause I was having him doing Rosetta Stone and then he learned how to cheat the system. Mm-hmm. So he would just say the end part of the last part of the word. So then it would go bing. And I’m like, little shit’s like he’s, he’s, he’s cheating the system and so now I’m making him it,

Which is a skill we want. But now you actually have to teach him Spanish.

Yeah. So I’m having him say it and then I’m having it write it, and then I’m like, what does it mean? And so that way I can really, and I, and I made it part of his learning, I made it part of his, like, so he has Spanish Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then he has like typing Tuesday, Thursday. So I’m typing.com. Like I’m doing all these different things that, that I’m trying to do different that I’m like, because he is done by one. And the cool part about it. And I’m able to do different things with them and, and create different things with them. So yeah, learning, it’s lot of learning.

Keeping you young over there. Keeping you young.

Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes. ’cause all of our other kids were like very like little you know, chest, very quiet, very chill. You know, Josh would do little with paper, paper things, and. Not this one. This one like bounces off the walls. He’s like Tigger all over the place and I’m just like, oh, I’m not prepared for this.

Oh, I love that image of Tigger.

Yeah, he’s like, like I, wasn’t prepared for this. He’s got two speeds, like super slow with a tablet or he’s gone.

Yeah, gone. I love it. Yeah. Well, it’s been an amazing conversation. I wanna wrap up with our, always our final question, which is, who are your ancestors? What is that fount of ancestral wisdom and knowledge that you go to when you need to be restored, when you need to remember who you are, be they thinkers or your family. Like, tell us about your ancestors. Tell us about where, where are those cloud of witnesses for you?

So my family’s from Mexico. From, from, uh, Matamoros. From San Luis Potosí. I always think of my, my mother. My mom had a degree in, in teaching. School teacher. Mm-hmm. But then when she came to, to the US, she didn’t have that. And so she would teach Sunday school. Mm. And I, and she was an artist, and so I would do puppet shows with her. We would do sewing. She would, she would sew and then I would learn how to do puppet shows. And that’s how we would do ministry in Sunday School through puppet shows and through, through characters and through all kinds of stuff. And so I always look at that. Uh, another aunt of mine was, um, the equivalent of a registered nurse when she was in Matamoros and, and all that. But then when she came over to the States, she lost all that and yeah. And she got married and she was just a housewife, but she was our nurse. Every- if any kid got sick, you would go to, you would go to her and she would go across the border and get the medicina, and she was the one that would give you the shots and Woo. And so what I learned, um, and my tíos were like, they were, you know, they, they had their little businesses, their tienditas. And so my, my ancestors are my family who, who they taught us how to survive.

Mm-hmm.

How to make a way when there’s no way. Mm-hmm. How to share your frijoles and arroz tortillas so that you never really felt like you were poor or lacking or anything.

Mm-hmm.

And so that’s who I go to in terms of like, no matter how hard things are, like you always are just grateful. And that’s what I learned about from, from my family, is that they were always grateful and they always taught us, too, um, some things might not be working. But how can you creatively be and exist? And, and in their own way, they were teaching us about wholeness.

Yeah.

And they were teaching us about surviving skills, and they were teaching about, about sharing the table even when you didn’t have any. Like you still had something. And so I think that I, I have, I have grown and I have, um, I have kept that with me in everything I do in, in things. And then in terms of seminary, once I entered seminary, I learned about the life of Gloria Anzaldúa. Yes. You know, a Chicano, um, lesbian who, um, she has a book called The Border Called Me Back. And, and I, at this time in my life, I’m like, the border’s calling me back. Hmm. And so, um, I also treat her as an ancestor and as a yes, as someone that I learned so much. Because I learned from her, one of her quotes was that, um, people always try to dividethe educator, the lesbian, the activist. People always try to divide these different personalities, and Gloria Anzaldúa would say, I am an entire person in all of these things and I cannot separate myself. And, and, and that really touched me.

Yeah.

Um, because I was like, how many times through growing up you try to separate

Yeah.

In, in what areas you were in that you had to become something or put a mask on or mm-hmm. Or, and, and I learned that like, no, like the whole beautiful thing about who you are is bringing all of you in.

Yeah.

The queerness, the sacredness, the theological part, everything. You bring all that in and that’s what makes it so like, just authentic.

Yeah.

And I think that’s what I try to give that message to the young ones that I serve and, and those I walk with, it’s like, be you. Mm-hmm. Because that’s all that’s being asked is for you to be you.

Yes. Woo. And you are one of those people who are so authentic in every piece of

Thank you.

Every place I see you in all of the wildly creative and interesting things I see you doing. I’m just like, that’s you. Like you are being you. And I think that is as much of an example as anything that you tell anybody else is like how we live our lives. So thank you for living your life out loud. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thank you for your time and uh, yeah, this was an amazing episode. It did not disappoint you.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for what you do. Because the truth is that by getting those voices out there and, and, and connecting with the work that all everyone else is doing out there, it is so much needed right now. Yeah. Because as we’re hearing all the negativity in the world is good to also hear all the great stuff going on around us. So thank you for this platform. And for Soulforce.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today for Teología Sin Vergüenza. I’m Reverend Alba Onofrio, but you can call me Reverend Sex. Let us know what resonated for you from today’s conversation, and make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with someone in your life who might need it. Check out all of our other juicy content on this channel and find us on social media @soulforceorg or @teosinvergüenza in Spanish. Cuídadete mucho, and remember, we are Las Sinvergüenzas. Are you one of us? Oo, sí! Sí, sí, sí.

Axis Mundi.

Welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza, Queer and feminist theology from Latin America and its diaspora to get those spiritual justice juices flowing. I’m your host, Reverend Sex. You may not have heard from a lot of folks who live shamelessly as both queer trans feministas and people of faith, but you’re about to! Even if you don’t know it, we are everywhere. We do our work in the academy, in the church, in our homes, and on the streets. We fight for our communities and for our own lives. We are not macho, but we are many. We’re irreverent Queer feminists who are shamelessly faithful, and we’re faithful theologians who are shamelessly activistas. We are shamelessly, las sinvergüenzas. We pluck the ripest fruit from the Bible to make juicy, queer feminist Latine theology that refreshes your spirit and quenches your thirst for liberation. In this episode, you’ll find delicious decolonial theology for the real world, right now. So get your cup of coffee, pull up a chair ’cause you belong here. Now let’s get down to pleasure. Hey there. Welcome to this episode Teología Sin Vergüenza. Today I’m overjoyed to be talking with CasSandra Calin, who is a queer feminist, Black-Cuban healer who’s passionate about spirit work, identity, divinity, and pleasure. She studies the mental and spiritual wellness of LGBTQ+ activists and has recently returned to school to get her PhD in social work. Cassandra is part of Soulforce, has been on our Board, and has been part of Soulforce since 2015, when she was part of the Southeast House Fellowship. So we welcome her and we’re so excited to hear her story today. Hi Beloved, welcome to Teología Sin Vergüenza!

Hi Alba, thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

I feel like we have been on a journey, a spiritual journey for a decade now, and it feels like it’s time to get it on the record. It’s time to have the conversation that other people get to hear, you know, not just us in our pajamas late at night, but like the rest of the world gets a little insight into all this goodness.

Yeah, I’m excited too.

Yeah, I can’t wait for our audience to hear from you. So the first question, as you know, always the same. Do you identify as a Sinvergüenza? Why or why not? And particularly because we’re speaking to an English audience this season, tell us about your relationship to that word. Was that something you heard growing up? Is it something you’ve learned recently? What does it mean to you? In case folks don’t know that word. So tell us about your sinvergüenzura.

So, sinvergüenza to me, just means shameless, and I think it’s a really, really powerful concept. It’s not one I had heard about before Soulforce started this podcast so long ago. I was familiar with vergüenza as a Spanish vocabulary where it means shame, and have a long history of familiarity with shame itself, but hadn’t heard that word. Definitely claim it as, uh, a characteristic that I identify with, being sinvergüenza. I can share a little bit with your audience about how I got here from the

Yeah.

more shameful place. I, yeah, I’ve experienced shame on this kind of leveled, like multi-layered way, and it’s been around like race, ethnicity, gender, and queerness.

Mm.

As a Black Queer woman, there’s been a lot of opportunities to internalize shame, to be fed these shameful stories about who I am or should be and what’s wrong with me. Hmm.

Mm.

And I would say I absolutely received and internalized those stories. I think a big piece of how they were fed to me and why I internalized them was that they came with this coding of God and divinity.

Mm-hmm.

And religion. And so the more ashamed you were, the more humble and good you were. There was a morality that came with being ashamed. Um, and there was a lot to be ashamed about. And there was this relationship between like God’s or Jesus’s sacrifice being greater because we are so shameful and that made his love. It was, it was a lot. And I ate it up. But, um, some of the impacts that I noticed as a result of internalizing that shame was disconnection from myself, from my body, from my desire. And, um, even just like personality, I spent a long time trying to change who I was. Um, and within that, definitely pushed other people away as well, and had community and interpersonal disconnection. From externalizing that judgment onto other people and also just trying to find people who would both align with my shame levels.

Mm-hmm.

And like pray me into a better place. I don’t know. But in noticing that shame often came with disconnection and isolation for me, it makes sense then that becoming sinvergüenza and ridding myself of that shame also happened in the context of community. Breaking down isolation, moving towards connection, um, getting to see other people model shamelessness and their queer and other like expansive identities, um, out loud on purpose and normalize that, but also getting to explore who I wanna be rather than who I should be in community with people who were empathetically vulnerably and really generously attentive to kind of witnessing me through that journey.

Yes. Amen. Hallelujah. You have been our Board Chair at Soulforce for six years now. That’s like the maximum term. So, I feel like you got, um, whatever that was that you drank in the Kool-Aid.

Mm-hmm.

As a young person, which I was right there with you, you re-, when you turned a new leaf boy, you really did it in a big way because at Soulforce, our mission is to sabotage white Christian supremacy and heal spiritual violence. And I just feel like your story and your arc feels like one of those perfect examples of how we have a lot of capacity to accept the stuff that is put on us to control us. And we also have an incredible capacity to like peel, like an onion and bloom into our fullest most beautiful selves. And, um, I just think you’re just an amazing, amazing human that does that so beautifully. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about what you just said around like, you knew the word from Spanish class, but the identity and all of that stuff were new to you with Soulforce and starting this podcast five years ago now. My goodness. Um. But I think that’s a really important point because so many of us in the US who are in diaspora from the places that we originally came from, and our families, especially when we have like mixed heritage and things like that, it’s, this is assumption that the only people who can be Latina, Latine, Latinx are people who speak Spanish fluently or as their first language. And there’s all of these, like if at least it’s how it felt for me growing up. But there were all these criteria that I had to meet before I was allowed to call myself any of the words connected with my family. And it’s like at this point I’m like, I, my mother was an immigrant. That is just what is true and. It doesn’t have to be that we have to all speak Spanish or Portuguese or some other colonizer language or even our indigenous languages that are often lost to be, to claim that and for it to be ours. And I think there’s a lot of shame that a lot of us carry around around not being good enough to fit into whatever the identity category is. And part of the point of this podcast is to expand into English because we recognize that not everybody speaks Spanish or Portuguese or any of the other languages from Latin America as our, as our first or even second languages. And I wonder if you would be willing to talk a little bit about your journey, especially around that piece, and if that was ever, if shame was ever part of that for you, or if it was ever difficult for you to claim the part of you that is connected to, to Latin America.

I probably recognized, in the last 10 years, the specific moments in my childhood that I could say, oh, that was Cuban. That was Latinidad in my family interactions and culture, but I didn’t experience it that way as a child.

Mm-hmm.

It wasn’t contextualized that way for me, and there wasn’t kind of a laid out set of stepping stones. To move towards a thing, claim it. It was kind of just like my aunts and my grandmother spoke Spanish and I was just like bopping around not speaking Spanish. It wasn’t taught to me. And so it’s absolutely been a process of reclamation. But before that, trying to evaluate if I’m worthy, if I deserve to claim it, if it makes sense, what my motivation is. Um, and, yeah. Sometimes it just boils down to like, I have a grandmother who grew up in Cuba and that’s really all that it needs to be. Um, and then there’s different questions about diaspora and family and legacy and culture. Um, it started, my journey of intentionally reclaiming it for myself Latinidad and my place in it, I would say middle school Spanish classes when I was like, yeah, I choose this. You could do French, you could do German, I chose Spanish. Part of that was absolutely connected to family. And the further into that study I got, the more questions I had. Um, the more access I had. And all along the way, there was still this process of being questioned around.

Mm-hmm.

Like why I was choosing to access it.

Yeah.

Um, even if I would tell people from childhood through today, like that my family is Cuban, or I’m Cuban, there was like do you speak Spanish, have you ever been, blah, blah, blah.

Mm-hmm.

Is it on both sides of your family or just one side? Um,

mm-hmm.

And so there was absolutely this rubric that I held myself to and said, I guess I’m not quite that enough, and one day I will be.

Mm.

Um, but it’s, I don’t know. I, I did get a chance to visit and I think some of the resonance that I felt when there was more affirmation than coming back and reporting to anybody or like checking off the rubric, just feeling like, oh, this is it. This feels connected to me. This feels like familiar to me even though this is my first time here. But that was definitely one of the huge and many moments that I- just to push through the shame and the need to like perform or earn or demonstrate adequacy to some like judging panel of other Latino people.

Mostly in our heads because we just keep those questions and keep asking ourselves over and over again, if that’s true for you.

Exactly, exactly. And it has been, more than anything, a resource to be able to give back, right? To be able to connect back with rather than like something that I took for myself and claimed and then I’m like taking up space in and might not deserve to. It has been an opportunity to reach for other people, not even necessarily Cuban people, but other like folks who speak Spanish or who

Mm-hmm.

Aren’t comfortable in particular settings to connect across marginalization.

Yes.

And oppression with the like Spanish language or just the experience of diaspora and displacement. It’s been like such a gift to receive and then be able to offer back and reach out in connection with as well.

I wonder if you would talk a little bit about your first trip back to the island, because I do feel like so many of us have as our life goals to go back to where our families are from. And I think we have a variety of experiences, but I know that you had been to multiple places in Latin America when you finally went back to Cuba. And I was grateful enough to be a part of that trip and we were able to go, um, back and not just be in Cuba, but with like queer and trans people in Cuba, which is a very particular subset. But will you just tell us a little bit about that trip for you? If there was anything particularly memorable or, or what made that thing be like the ‘Yes, my soul resonates with this people or this place’?

I mean, one of the things, which is just what my eye landed on when I first got there, was the diversity of skin tones in that country. It absolutely is represented in my family, on my dad’s side, and was a very familiar kind of palette of color when I got there and just saw all of the people who are Cuban. And yeah, look different from each other. And so that was really affirming, I think particularly because the few conversations that I’ve been in about Afro-Latinidad

Mm-hmm.

Were like tense and uncertain and it was this debate. And there was no debate there in Cuba about like Black, light brown, white, whatever. It’s just like everybody there is Cuban no questions asked. And so that was one of the first things that my eye landed on. Not only did we get to be with queer and trans people in Cuba, but with church queer and trans people in Cuba.

Yes.

And so there, I mean, it was that like, I don’t know, maybe the Cuban God then was present too.

The Orishas were there.

Yeah. Yeah. And we learned a lot about divinity and spirituality when we were there.

Mm-hmm.

And all the different ways that that looks and all the ways that that’s influenced by different African cultures and what’s indigenous to Cuba. And so. I think it was just so much diversity was disruptive of this idea that there’s one way to do it or that you can do it in a right or wrong way. Like all of these people were all doing it in different ways. Validating and verifying on each other. Like, yeah, that looks about right to me. That I, it was like, I love to, you know, experience that engage and participate in that and have it affirmed as well by that same set of people who welcomed me as a Cuban person. It was amazing.

I remember this moment in church where the pastors just took a moment to be like welcoming a daughter of the island back, and you had this moment with the congregation. I will never forget that impromptu ritual.

It was a baptism, basically.

Mm.

Not, like there was no water, but that like those hugs, those tears, being there and held in that way was absolutely a baptism.

I love that. I often talk to lots of mixed people who have a parent, a grandparent, whoever, who came from Latin America, whose families did this like whitening process basically by marrying or having children with white people. Which is this very clear white supremacist strategy of assimilation through aspiring to be white. Which of course we never read as white to, to most, uh, people, but yet there’s this fiction that we’re taught that if we better the race, which is very Latin American, like if weand so I feel like one of the things I feel passionately about for folks who come from a Latin American identity and are mixed white and something from, from Latin America. To recognize that white privilege and white passing is really important to recognize and to work on, and also it’s a strategy of white supremacy to try to get us to, to ignore and erase the parts of us that are not white so that we can be safer or treated better.

Mm-hmm.

Which is so clearly anti-Blackness, like not even, not even veiled. And I wonder if you would talk a little bit about that from the other side. Because I think the other side is also true, that if you present as Black, this Latinidad is a category that a lot of people get erased in that, who live in that category, because it’s like if you are Black in the US, there is so much anti-Blackness that there is, like you get lumped together. That’s, one, really hard for a lot of, particularly Caribbean, um, immigrants, but also I think it’s really hard for Afro-Latines per- people who live in the US and mixed or intermarried the other direction with other Black people like African American people and African descended peoples in the US.

Mm-hmm.

Will you talk a little bit about that the other way?

Part of what I’ve reflected on is there is a hesitancy in me to claim Latinidad and being Cuban because it, it lights people’s eyes up in a particular way, that I can tell they’re like relieved. They have a, a greater appreciation, a greater like admiration. There’s this exoticizing.

Mm-hmm.

But it’s also just like, oh, you’re more than just Black, or you’re better than just Black.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so I, I don’t subscribe to that and I don’t wanna kind of look for this, almost like lighter eye color kind of

yeah.

You know, analogy to be more appealing, appeasing to people. So that’s complicated. It’s further complicated by my relationship to Blackness and where I grew up.

Yeah.

And having not been accepted necessarily as Black enough either. And so not necessarily Latina enough, not Black enough. Nobody’s gonna like welcome me into whiteness, which I feel great about. But there’s this like kind of thing coming around of like, where can I settle and what do I need to perform around my culture and ethnicity to be, um, accepted. And being in a mixed family. My mom didn’t speak Spanish. And I think that’s a part of the story that I was told around why we as kids were not taught span, taught Spanish. Um, not wanting to exclude my mom. But there was also, yeah, definitely this superiority kind of too, to, um, to the side of the family that wasn’t just Black and had more interesting things going on.

Mm-hmm.

It was a really weird piece, but definitely part of my experience.

One, I just wanna like hold that. It’s so painful to be like, oh, you’re more than just, and I feel like an activist culture in a movement space. It’s really important for those of us who have white passing privilege and light skin privilege to also not fall into that trap. Because it’s like, oh, you aren’t just white, so you can claim a little brownness over here, so maybe you can get out of some of that guilt or shame or whatever. And I think that’s also totally not helpful or functional in any kind of solidarity, and it feels so painful. To hold that level of anti-Blackness. And then the counter response to whiteness and, and it’s like everybody’s trying to escape this Black and white binary, but it shows up in this really weird, twisted way where everything is like, we’re just clinging to being exotic and it’s. And I’m like, that sounds like ChristianChristianity, Christian morality weaponized into Christian Supremacy. I’m like, that, those feel like they are connected, like it’s not just a political project, but there’s that piece around the shame that has something to do with you’re not good enough, that connects with not being good enough to earn grace or heaven or whatever. Do you ever think about those, your political realities, and I know you reflect on this stuff so much. But how that connects with Christianity and how you were taught. And maybe give us a little bit more about your context. And that, like how do I, how do I settle? Where am I enough? Where am I fully myself? Because I feel like that’s the narrative Christianity tell, tells us. Like, we don’t see color. We’re all enough in Christ. Until we’re queer trans. But, will you tell us a little bit about your story and how it connects to that?

I mean, the first memory that comes up for me is, in college, I had a youth or young adult pastor tell me that when we get to heaven, we’re all gonna be white. Oh, that was harmful. But outside of that explicitness, it’s, that’s still gonna be part of the coding, you know?

Yeah.

Even like growing up in a Black Baptist church, there was just this, like, still this distancing from certain types of Blackness.

Hmm.

Still this respectability politics.

Yes.

Um, that was very present and force fed to people as a way of earning a membership or belonging in the church context. Yes, I absolutely see a connection between white Christian Supremacy, politics, race and ethnicity, and how pathologized and criminalized and demonized non-whiteness in particular, more than others Blackness is, and that moving away from Black culture, Black identity, will get you closer to being white as snow to being holy, to being pure. And it, you know, it comes with a lot of shame and community level shame. Um, and I think that the advocacy that we do in community and the activism that we do in community is beyond changing this legislation, but is absolutely about changing these so social and cultural ideas of what, um, what is ethical and what is criminal.

Yes. Yes. Oh my God, that seems so right. I wonder if you have experiences around that healing and reclamation work. Well, maybe we should back up and just try to define a little bit what is spiritual violence, because that’s a big part of what we talk about in Soulforce, and I feel like you are a healer of spiritual violence, both in your practice as a mental health clinician for our people, who I trust so deeply, and as an activist and as like a kid of the south and as a movement person through your whole young adult life. Um, so maybe will you tell us how you would describe what spiritual violence is, and then some of your experiences of. Literally what you just said around how do you heal from these entire systems and constructs that were fed, as connected with God and Jesus, and salvation and belonging. Mm-hmm. How do you do that? Because I see you just sabotage that shit all day every day. I do.

It’s about power, like Christian Supremacy, spiritual violence is about power. And people wanted to put more power behind their hatefulness and behind their reaching for control. And so they said, if I put God’s name on this

Mm-hmm

then it has more power. And then you have to do what I say and you have to subscribe to my opinion or toxicity. ‘Cause I said that God agrees with me.

Right.

So that’s how I would describe spiritual violence. It’s when people try to validate their violent, their interpersonal violence

Mm-hmm.

With God and divinity and this like religion and church weight to give to it.

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Um, and it’s effective. And in addition to these ideas around just like God and church, there’s heaven and hell and eternity and having access to the resources that you need to survive. All of this is tied up in whether you do what I say God said you should do.

Mm-hmm.

And it’s a psychological type of violence. It’s absolutely a physical type of violence. And it is not just, uh, perpetuated from kind of the outside culture into

Yeah.

The marginalized culture. I would say we absolutely extended it to one another. Queer

Yeah.

And trans people, folks of color perpetuate spiritual violence against each other. Maybe having no idea that that’s what’s happening or thinking that they’re, you know, doing good. Some of the ways that I have found liberation from spiritual violence and white Christian Supremacy was listening more closely to my inner voice and trying to fit myself into that tiny little space that spiritual violence said I should cut off pieces of myself in order to fit into and failing over again.

Yes, yes.

I couldn’t do it. I tried. I couldn’t do it.

Yes. And because you’re bigger than life.

Because I’m bigger. Absolutely.

And thank God you couldn’t because this version of you is just glorious.

And there are people who keep trying and keep trying.

Yes, yes.

And it didn’t work out that way for me. Partially, like I mentioned earlier, because of the community that I had access to and the other examples that I saw about what was possible.

Mm-hmm.

Um, partly because of my own inner divinity and magic and that I was able to hear that inner narrative said, no, that doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit. It’s not gonna work. Let’s try something else.

Yes.

And it was somewhat incremental. I think, still, trying to, at a certain point, fit those same ideas into like a queer relationship. And I was like, okay, I can’t be straight, but we can be a man and a woman as too, do everything else the same way. And that didn’t fit, and that didn’t work. And so, yeah, it was just this, like I went from having tried to shed pieces of myself to

Mm-hmm.

Learning how to shed pieces of that, like spiritual violent narrative and Christian Supremacy. Um, and each piece that fell off. The freedom and the connection itself and the joy and the acts of the pleasure. It was so motivating, yeah. To continue to do that and pursue that and encourage other people to do that as well. Some of that has looked like the relationships that I found myself in. Some of that has just been about. Like the books I read, the music that I listen to on every level of what we consume and how we talk to ourselves.

Yes.

There is opportunity to heal from spiritual violence.

I feel like the narratives, it’s like if you plant the seed, we will nurture the seed. And if the seed is I’m terrible and not worthy and God doesn’t love me, we can just grow a whole monster that will eat us alive. And the other side I think is true. It’s harder to nurture the seeds of I am divine and I am made in the image and I am capable. Because it’s such a hostile climate that we are living in both internally and externally in this moment. But I do believe so deeply that there is so many motivating yeses along the way from like good sex to great conversations, to feeling seen and heard, to joy that pops up when we are like organically ourselves and it sounds like, especially because you were talking about where do I belong, that it feels like your landing spot is belonging exactly in yourself, in your body. Um, and I wonder if you have any, uh, thoughts or ideas or what you would suggest for other people who are on a similar journey and maybe don’t have the same level of community that are constantly mirroring back our divinity or encouraging us to explore something new or something different. Particularly from a, from those of us who come from church communities who have been told everything is the devil and wrong and bad. How do we break open? How do we break into something new?

I think one of the things that I found tickled by the most and also inspired by the most was that VBS series that Soulforce did about nature

Yes.

And animals. And I think that’s so important because even if you don’t know another. Queer person in the world. There is queerness all around us. There is

Yes.

A refusal to be colonized in nature itself. There is liberation in just like how the grass grows and how the vines take over, right?

Yes.

And even if you can’t see it reflected back by your best friend or, or your sibling, I think there’s still a lot of power to look for where queerness and liberation and decolonization is happening in the world around you. Um, and yeah, to find in yourself the, what your voice sounds like.

Yeah.

What your yes feels like, what your no feels like.

Mm.

Um, and to try it on and see what affirms it. What says yes to your yes. And what says yes to your no as well.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that’s a p- like so much of what we’re talking about to me, that has nothing to do with sex, is queerness. Like having and setting boundaries is queer, like,

Yes.

Being explicit about your expectations and moving to a place that they can be met is queer and asserting yourself and advocating for your needs. All of these ways that we push back against being smooshed into that tiny hole such that we lose ourselves, those are liberatory acts of, um, resistance and rejection of the norm. And so any opportunities that a person has to do that, affirm that in themself and celebrate that I think is gonna be like movement after movement towards healing from spiritual violence, but also like finding freedom.

Yes. Uh. I love that roadmap. And I feel like you’re talking about exercising the muscle of agency also at every step. I’m thinking about how there is like gayness and queerness, and I think lots of folks in mainstream don’t understand the difference.

Mm-hmm.

They’re like homosexual or not, and they’re like. I think what you described a little bit earlier is that line of, if you want the same, when you’re talking about trying to fit, you know, two women into a really, into a straight relationship, it feels a little bit like that of like. There are a lot of those kinds of churches where it’s like we will follow all of your like bloody theology, sacrifice, brokenness and not being worthy of anything. If you’ll just let me put like two grooms on the top of the cake instead of two, instead of one man, one woman, whatever. And I feel like the kind of nurturing and listening to, and um, just loving up on the internal voice that is like, I know in my body when it’s a yes, I feel like that is the difference. Because queerness is trying to find what is true and right. Mm-hmm. And recognizing over and over again that because of systems of domination and power, that that what is true and right is gonna go against massive structures of power. And I wonder if you have experiences that you’ll talk a little bit about around the difference or the transition maybe from that. Like, I just wanna be the, just like everybody else and be the same and be normal. Respectable.

Mm-hmm.

To this like very wild and free and loving and generous and generative way of being. That feels to me at least more like queerness.

It was again, that process of trying failing.

Mm.

And in any way that I contorted myself. I wasn’t accepted. In any way that I performed and people pleased I wasn’t accepted. And I just remember in one particular relationship going through with a therapist like the past two years, every time I visit this person, I try it this way, I try it that way. I talked to ’em this way. I set this up ahead of time. No way that I do it does it succeed. And at a certain point, if nothing I do is gonna work for you, then I get to figure out what works for me.

That’s right.

And so there was that piece and finding, I think, a similar experience in gay to queer relationships.

Mm-hmm.

I had all these ideas about what romance means and looks like and what it looks like for someone to desire me, and it was the princess fairytale. And I was finding people who loved me and wanted to be with me.

Mm-hmm.

And I was ultimately trying to like, write that story on them.

Mm.

Rather than finding people who already had it, you know, written on them.

Yeah.

Um, because I thought that they were the right person for me to be with. And so if you’re the right person. And then I can like feed you line by line the type of love I wanna receive maybe will be all right. We were not.

Yes, that doesn’t often work out Well.

Yeah, it didn’t work out. Um, and so honestly, like there has been. It feels night and day, the change in the relationship between me and me, that’s happened over the last three or four years. And just like choosing to divest and reinvest my energy. From composing and curating and creating outside of myself, all the things that would finally let me exhale. I just turned inward.

Mm.

And practiced, exhaling. And saw what happened when I did that and what didn’t happen. But yeah, that was a lot of what it looked like to stop trying to like gay and

Mm-hmm.

be Queer instead. Um, even now thinking about like the PhD program, thinking about my profession, and

Yes.

I have, you know. I have never worked like a nine to five. You know, like I am a therapist, I see clients, I have this schedule and this way of relating. And I still have these ideas around what it looks like to adult properly, right? And all these ideas around like what’s legitimate and what is right, and those 100% unquestionably come from white Supremacist Capitalism.

Yes.

I’m grateful that I haven’t been able to like, make my body do those things and haven’t had to. I’ve had other opportunities. And so it’s, it’s all the way from like my relationship to food, to my relationship to family, to my relationship to work, to my relationship to self. I’ve had to reject what the like

Mm-hmm.

Straightest version that I could fit on my body was, and instead like try on things that really, really fit or take it all off and run around and see what happens.

Yes.

And um, so far so good.

Yes, I would say so far so good. Your own practice, PhD program. Absolutely flush with people who love and adore you and just wanna bask in your light. Maybe let’s shift to your practice a little bit. I am curious what your approach is to clients and how you serve, because I know you primarily serve our community. And so maybe folks on the the call listening in maybe have never conceptualized what it could be to be a person of color, a person who is Queer or trans, a person of faith, and what does accompaniment, particularly from a therapist look like? And so how do you approach that work and serving our community?

Mm-hmm. It’s such a joy to get to work with other Queer and trans folks, and I consider it like,

Yes.

The blessing of my life. I always say that one of my, I guess my two biggest strengths as a therapist are gonna be asking questions and holding a warm container.

Mm.

And I think that a lot of times that’s what people need.

Yeah.

Not someone who’s gonna tell them what to do. Or even just like tell them that everything they’re thinking and feeling is correct and there’s nowhere to go from here, but a container to let them reflect, look in the mirror, some questions to think about. Um, it’s, it tickles me how many times a week, let’s say. I hear, that’s a good question. And there’s, they kind of like pop up out of my gut, I guess. But I think, yeah, a lot of times people don’t get asked questions, not just about themselves, but about their options, about different ways of looking at a thing. And that’s a big piece of what I would say my gift is to the clients that I get to work with. And there’s also this acceptance piece that I probably take for granted because it’s so normal.

Yes.

I mean, my clients appreciate that they don’t have to explain this and this to me.

Mm-hmm.

I had one client start with me recently. He was like, you understand polyamory? I was like, yes. You don’t have to explain, justify. I, we can just start from, yes, I understand and I see it as a valid relationship structure. How can I be supportive to where you’re at in your life right now?

Very few people have ever heard that in their entire lives. Just to be super explicit, that is a very, certainly not from a person of faith, certainly not from anybody who comes out. I mean, it’s just still a very fringe identity and lifestyle and what a blessing. And especially in communities of color. Let’s be clear, like it’s a different level of “Wow” because you can start there.

It’s exciting, it’s fun. I think a lot of queerness and even transness is just about like playing with body.

Mm-hmm.

And life and connection.

Yes.

Um, and so there’s so much more like flopping around, and seeing what fits, and what works, and what doesn’t fit, and why doesn’t it fit, rather than like I think getting as stuck in the shame cycle of what should I be doing and I’m not doing it and I should be doing it, and how do I make myself do it?

Yeah.

So I, I find that other form of work more generative, more creative, more exciting to get to do. If people are still in the like, ‘what should I be doing and how do I make myself’ we can start there and figure out, you know, where those stories came from and whether they do fit and maybe what doesn’t fit about them and what we wanna poke holes in. Um, but yeah, I, I love the work that I do.

It feels like a ministry actually that warm place of acceptance, especially for so many in our community who feel like there’s nowhere where we get to just like exhale. And so. It makes me absolutely connect that with ministry in, in all of the ways. I’m wondering, in this political moment where things just feel on a thousand all the time, what are the questions you, you are saying like one of your main strategies is asking the right questions. So I’m wondering from your perspective, what are the right questions that we should be asking ourselves these days? And that could be ourselves as in like. People of color, Queer and trans people, people in the south, people in the United States, Latine people like any of those. But what are the questions that you’re sitting with or that you think that we should be thinking through right now?

One of the things that I find encouraging is what our people have already been through.

Mm-hmm.

And it makes what’s happening now feel not bigger than us.

Yeah.

Than who we are. Than who we’ve been. And all the like choir of ancestors standing behind us.

Yes.

It’s still scary. It’s still big.

Yeah.

It’s still violent, but there’s something about being able to say, the people that I come from have been through all y’all’s bullshit before.

Mm, mm.

And found pleasure and fought for agency and human dignity. And

Yes.

That’s the legacy that we come from and the skillset that we have. And so one of the questions I think that can be helpful for people to start with is like, what do I hold? What was, what did I inherit from my ancestors, whether that’s like Queer and trans ancestors that I’ve never been related to or like my direct aunt so and so, um, that will help me move through today and tomorrow. What did I inherit that I want to offer to my community now?

Yes.

There’s another question around like, what, what is my hierarchy of needs? Yes. What do I need for survival? What do I need for joy and pleasure? Does it feel like it needs to happen one at a time, or can I try to move towards and reach for that full span all at once? I think there’s a lot to learn about what people’s fight, flight, and freeze looks like.

Yeah.

What happens for me when I get activated. Because we can move through the entirety of 2025 in a free state and have no idea that that’s what’s happening.

Yes.

Um, and then maybe it’s about when I look at the news. Is it in the middle of the day? Is it in the evening? Is it in the morning? There’s so many just small shifts that we can make to our routine if we understand what activates us and what that looks and feels like. Maybe it’s just about noticing that it happened and then the question is, how do I come out of that? What’s helpful to me to ground me back into my body?

Yes.

Like I said, the stuff that’s happening is scary. And scaring us is absolutely one of the tactics and intentions.